The Moderating Role of Consumer Characteristics on E-Loyalty in E-banking business: A Multigroup Analysis

Abstract

Noticing the recent development in internet banking in different parts of the world has resulted in increasing online transactions without visiting the bank. Thus, this study investigates the importance of antecedents of e-loyalty—shared value, information quality, system quality, service quality, trust, attraction, and satisfaction— in using e-banking services and the role of consumer characteristics (gender, age, and level of education) as a moderator was analyzed as well. A survey questionnaire was distributed conveniently via online and face-to-face to customers in Muscat and Nizwa to gain important insights on how customer loyalty in the e-banking business is constructed. A total of 228 usable questionnaires were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics, multigroup analysis, and structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses. Results of the analyses indicated that e-loyalty is found to be positively influenced by satisfaction, which later influenced by trust, attraction, shared value, information quality, system quality, service quality. The moderating role of gender, age, and level of education was supported by the data. The paper concludes some implications and limitations of the results are discussed. Besides, investigating which factors are important in driving customers using online banking, this study provides a deeper understanding of keeping customers online and loyal to a particular service provider. Specifically, the service providers need to focus on the importance of gender, age, and level of education in moderating the construction of e-loyalty in using e-banking services. This study provides new insights by adding attraction as an antecedent of customer satisfaction and the moderating role of consumer characteristics in using e-banking services.

Keywords

• e-loyalty
• e-banking
• structural equation modeling
• multigroup analysis
• oman