Adoption of e-Banking: a Comparative Study between Individuals' and Companies' Influencing Factors

In a short period of time, e-banking has become a viable alternative for individuals and companies to replace the traditional way of doing their financial transactions. This paper identifies and compares the factors that influence individuals and companies to adopt e-banking. The factors that hypothesized to affect the adoption of e-banking have been derived from theories such as the decomposed theory of planned behavior, technology acceptance model, and diffusion of innovation theory and relevant findings from empirical studies. Surveys were conducted on individuals and companies located in Romania. The results showed that technical resources, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, self-efficacy, cost and compatibility are factors that influence both the individuals and companies to adopt e-banking. Interestingly, the study also found that security is an important determinant for individuals, not companies while accessibility is an important determinant for companies, not individuals. The results of the study provide in-depth understanding of factors that influence individuals and companies in adopting e-banking. Understanding these factors will provide better guides for banking institutions in designing strategies to promote e-banking adoption among their customers, who are individuals and companies.