STUDY ON THE DETERMINANTS OF CONSUMER SATISFACTION WITH DIGITAL BANKING SERVICES PROVIDED BY BANKS. EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIA

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the banking industry faced numerous challenges (the sudden and total closure of physical units, exclusively remote relations with customers) and was pushed to accelerate the digitalization process started in the 2000s. In this context, digital banking services became of paramount importance and the factors that influence consumer satisfaction with digital banking services were at the centre of attention of both industry and academia. The aim of this paper is to determine a ranking of the determinants that influence consumer satisfaction with digital banking services, at the start of the pandemic. To this end, we conducted a quantitative research based on a questionnaire in Constanta County. Using graphical visualization to observe the impact of a series of independent variables (the level of education, the characteristics of banks, accessibility, the frequency of using the digital banking services, the level of technology of the bank, and consumers’ trust in the bank with which they frequently relate) on the dependent variable - customer satisfaction with digital banking services, and training an artificial neural network (ANN), we obtained a hierarchy of the influence factors. The research results revealed that customer satisfaction with digital banking services is primarily influenced by their trust in the bank they work with and the bank's level of technology

Keywords

• customer satisfaction
• digital banking
• satisfaction determinants
• banks
• romania