The Moderating Effect of Individual Differences on the Acceptance and Use of Internet Banking: A Developing Country Perspective

This research examines factors influencing the acceptance of internet banking (IB) in Lebanon. It extends the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model by including trust as a proxy and then investigates the moderating effect of a set of socio-demographic variables (gender, age, experience) in shaping consumer perceptions towards using IB. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 408 IB consumers in Lebanon. Structural equation modelling was employed as the main method of analysis. The results show that behavioral intention (BI) was significantly influenced by performance expectancy (PE), social influence (SI), trust (TRU) and effort expectancy (EE) in their order of influencing power. Moreover, facilitating conditions (FC) and BI significantly influenced use behavior (UB). Gender moderated the relationship between PE_BI and SI_BI, age moderated the relationship between PE_BI, EE_BI, and FC_UB, and experience moderated the relationship between EE_BI and SI_BI. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed at the end of the article.