Research Project: E-Banking and Credit Card Usage - Imperial

This research project investigates consumer awareness and usage of e-banking transactions, with a specific focus on student spending via credit cards at Imperial College London. The project begins with an outline of the research specifications, including the formulation of research questions and objectives, such as examining student awareness, measuring satisfaction, and identifying usage patterns. A comprehensive literature review is conducted to explore existing research on e-banking, highlighting both positive factors like convenience and negative factors like perceived risks. The research methodology involves a combination of purposive and random sampling, utilizing questionnaires to collect primary data from Imperial College students. The findings are analyzed to determine the age and gender distribution of the respondents, their awareness of e-banking services, their credit card usage, and their reasons for using credit cards. The report also examines the use of mobile apps for e-banking and explores the students' suggestions for improving e-banking services. The research employs an inductive approach and an interpretivism philosophy to understand the students' perspectives, providing insights into their attitudes, behaviors, and challenges related to e-banking and credit card usage. The research concludes with recommendations and suggestions for further study, contributing to the understanding of student financial behavior in the digital age. This report is a valuable resource for students studying business development and related fields, and is available on Desklib, a platform providing past papers and solved assignments.

RESEARCH
PROJECT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Research Title..............................................................................................................................1
1.1 Formulate and record possible research project outline specifications.................................1
1.2 Identify the factors that contribute to the process of research project selection....................1
1.3 undertake a critical review of key references........................................................................2
1.4 Produce a research project specification................................................................................3
1.5 provide an appropriate plan and procedures for the agreed research specification...............3
2.1 match resources efficiently to the research question or hypothesis.......................................4
2.2 Undertake the proposed research investigation in accordance with the agreed specification
and procedures.............................................................................................................................5
2.3 record and collate relevant data where appropriate...............................................................6
3.1 Use appropriate research evaluation techniques....................................................................9
3.2 interpret and analyse the results in terms of the original research specification.................10
3.3 make recommendations and justify areas for further consideration....................................11
4.1 use an agreed format and appropriate media to present the outcomes of the research to an
audience.....................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

Research Title
Consumer awareness and usage of E-banking transactions - A study on consumer spending via
credit cards – Perspectives from Imperial College of London
1.1 Formulate and record possible research project outline specifications
It is evident that E-banking has become a part of everyday life. This aspect is helping in
performing a range of activities that is online shopping, paying bills, booking holidays and many
other activities. The users are able to do their financial transactions in electronic manner (Chang,
Wang and Yan 2009). All these transactions are computerized and provides high level of comfort
and convenience. This comfort is being possible due to availability of devices such as mobile,
laptops, computers, tablets etc. All the banks in UK are offering online banking services and it
depends on the customers to decide the service of the bank which they want to avail. This
research has been undertaken to inspect the consumer awareness and usage of e-banking
transactions (Gustafsson, Johnson and Roos, 2005). The focus is particularly made on consumer
spending via credit cards. Physically the credit card is just a plastic thing which allows the
customers to borrow money from the bank for fulfilling their respective objectives.
1.2 Identify the factors that contribute to the process of research project selection
It will be interesting to know how new technological activities changes the business
environment, society awareness and understanding of the financial world. The research project
aims at identifying the temptations and problems related to usage of the e-banking. No other
researcher has tried to investigate the consumer awareness of e-banking on the basis of student
opinions. Hence a very little is known about the student awareness and their readiness to use the
credit cards. There is a GAP of knowledge, so it is decided to undertake this research project and
much more meaningful information can be added to the subject. The motive is to educate the
students about the advantages and disadvantages on e-banking transaction and the usage of the
credit cards. It can be a great opportunity to investigate how students are dealing with credit
cards issues.
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1.3 undertake a critical review of key references
E-banking is a process which facilitates the users to operate their bank account from any
location of the world. It is a service which ensures high amount of flexibility to the consumers. It
has become an inseparable element of the banking industry in a very quick span of time (Han
and Ryu, 2009). Things have become quite easier for the users and they are enjoying these kind
of services. Following are the features of e-banking:
 Account details – It is easy to get in touch with account information, account balance,
statements and many more (Smith, 2009). Further details related to Demat, Loan and
credit card can be disclosed easily.
 Fund Transfer – User can transfer the money to other accounts as well as the owned
accounts.
 Valued added services – There are many value added services such as utility bills.
Virtual cards, credit card bills, SMS banking etc (Mukherjee and Nath, 2003)
Contribution of various researchers
Positive Factors
Subject of e-banking has been a major focus of many researchers in past years.
According to Herington and Weaven, (2009), 24 hour service, price incentive and remote access
are the factors which motivate people to use e-banking. After doing comparison between
consumer perception of internet banking and other banking channels, they concluded that ATM,
phone and internet banking substitute each other. According to Kuo, Wu and Deng, W. (2009),
familiarity plays a major role in consumer perception towards e-banking. It was also identified
that e-banking is influenced by factors such as ownership of diverse financial products & service,
attitude, trust, seller support etc.
Negative Factors
According to Herington and Weaven, (2007), among the negative ones, perceived risk is
the factor which affects the adoption of these services. The perceived risks arises from
uncertainty. Security and privacy are also the factors which restricts the consumers in driving
towards e-banking. According to Mahdi and Dawson, (2007), security was identified as the main
barrier for availing e-banking services. People’s confidence in the technology was noted to be
weak.
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1.4 Produce a research project specification
The major aim of the study is to investigate the awareness of e-banking and its usage
among the consumers. Following research question is to be answered.
How much customers are aware of e-banking and what are the factors which affects their
decisions?
Following are the objectives of the study:
 To examine the awareness of e-banking and use of credit cards among the students
 To measure the customer satisfaction in e-banking transactions
 To identify which age group of people are using these kind of services the most
 To know the reasons behind not using of e-banking services among the students
Research questions
 What can be suggested to improve the student awareness related to e-banking services
 What are the factors which affect student’s decision to avail these services?
 What are the issues faced by the students while choosing to adopt e-banking services?
1.5 provide an appropriate plan and procedures for the agreed research specification
ACTIVITY/WEEK 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
 Identifying the problem
 Systematic analysis to choose
the topic for the study
 Choosing the research
 Conducting literature review
for secondary data collection
 Setting the objectives
 Primary data collection from
customers
 Identifying research approach
 Designing research
methodology
 Preparation of structured
questionnaire
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 Make Fill up the questionnaire
from customers
 Organizing collected data in
excel sheets
 Applying suitable technique to
analyse data
 Interpretation of the data
 Evaluation and finding of the
research
 Recommendation and
suggestions for further study
 Outlining the findings chapter
 Creating report in a
presentable manner
 Submission to instructor and
awaiting for feedback
 Revising the final draft
 Submitting report
 Presenting report to the
audience
2.1 match resources efficiently to the research question or hypothesis
This research project is intended to be local research study based on the Imperial College
student’s opinion. The college is located in East London where there is a high probability that
students use the e-banking services. This fact will help in determining what are the perceptions
carried by the students towards usage and awareness of e-banking and credit cards.
Research questions
 What can be suggested to improve the student awareness related to e-banking services
 What are the factors which affect student’s decision to avail these services?
 What are the issues faced by the students while choosing to adopt e-banking services?
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2.2 Undertake the proposed research investigation in accordance with the agreed specification
and procedures
 Sampling – It is a process of identifying the representative sample of the data. It is
performed to make sure that relevant data has been obtained from the decided sample.
There are two types of sampling first is probability sampling and other is non-probability
sampling (McBurney and White, 2009). For this research combination of purposive and
random sampling has been applied. It is suitable because it helps the researcher in
selecting the sample on the basis of convenience and interest. This research work
demands collection of primary data from students of Imperial College of London only
(Merriam, 2009)
 Questionnaire – For the purpose of collecting the primary data, questionnaire approach
has been selected. It is collected from students of Imperial college of London. This
approach is suitable because it helps in collecting large volume of relevant and ethical
data (Olsen, 2011).
Following questionnaire has been developed for the research
1 What is your age group?
A: 18-25 B: 26-40 C: 41-65
2. Indicate your gender
Male ( ) Female ( )
3. Are you aware of the e-banking services?
A: very aware B: not aware
If Not aware could describe why___________________________________________________
4. Do you use credit cards?
A: yes B: no
5. For what reasons do you generally use the credit card?
A) Everyday shopping. ( ) B) paying for holiday travel ( ) C) online shopping ( )
D) To pay bills ( ) E) paying for education ( ) F) fuel ( )
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6. How do you find the e-banking services?
A: complex A: yes B: simple
7. Tell some suggestions to improve E-Banking services?
8. Are you using mobile apps for E-Banking?
Yes No
9. Do you wish to improve E-Banking awareness for students?
………………………………………………………………….
2.3 record and collate relevant data where appropriate
The findings from the research are as follows:
Age group
Gender
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Awareness of E-banking services
Use of credit cards
7

Reasons for use
Nature of e-banking services
8

Use of Mobile Apps
3.1 Use appropriate research evaluation techniques
Research Approach
Approach decides the pattern of the research. There are two types of approaches which
includes inductive and deductive. For this research inductive approach has been applied in order
to derive theory from the subject matter (Punch, 2009). The study makes an attempt to
acknowledge the perspective of every student. The outcomes of the research are not certain.
Research philosophy
It shows the belief which the researcher carried out through the study. Taking into
consideration the nature of the present research, interpretivism philosophy has been applied. It is
appropriate because this philosophy aids in examining the behaviour of the individuals in the
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society (Sapsford and Jupp, 2006). The interpretivists talks about the shard consciousness as the
brain behind many of the concepts in a society.
3.2 interpret and analyse the results in terms of the original research specification
Question what is your age group?
On getting the responses it was identified that 64.52 % of the sample students belong to
age group of 18-25 years, while 32.23% belongs to 26-40 years and no responses were recorded
in the last category.
Indicate your gender
The gender distribution shows that 58 % of the respondents were male and 38% of the
sample were female.
Are you aware of the e-banking services?
The responses showed that 70.97% of the students were aware of the services and
25.81% of them were not aware. Several reasons were discovered behind the non-awareness.
Students were not having adequate knowledge about the service and due to this they had shown
avoidance. Security and privacy were also responsible for non-awareness. People hesitate to go
for adopting these services.
Do you use credit cards?
The findings showed that majority of the students were using the credit cards. It is
evident because it offers many advantages to the users. It is easy to just keep a card instead of
large amount of cash. The money can be used at any time and at anywhere. The credit card
statement makes the budgeting easier for the users.
For what reasons do you generally use the credit card?
Very mixed amount of responses were gathered from the participants. However it can be
said that there are many uses of credit card but mainly they are used for shopping and paying
bills. The use of it also depends upon the attitude and behaviour of the customers.
Are you using mobile apps for E-Banking?
The responses discovered that 87% of the students use the mobile app services while
3.23% do not use it. The proportion of sample people saying yes is high because mobile apps
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have become very popular tool these day. It offers many convenient and flexible service features,
all they need is the internet connectivity.
3.3 make recommendations and justify areas for further consideration
 Banking firms should focus on making e-banking and credit card services more
transparent and concise for the customers in order to remove hesitation from their minds
 Correct knowledge and information about the use of these services should be spread so
that future challenges associated with it can be avoided
 The major factor which affects consumer’s decision is security. The bank companies
should make efforts to make sure their customers that their money is safe and protected
 It is recommended to other researchers that they can perform research on other subjects
related to e-banking services.
 It is also recommended that this study will provide great amount of literature in the
concerned subject.
4.1 use an agreed format and appropriate media to present the outcomes of the research to an
audience
PPT Attached
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chang, H. H., Wang, Y. H. and Yang, W. Y., 2009. The impact of e-service quality, customer
satisfaction and loyalty on e-marketing: Moderating effect of perceived value. Total
Quality Management. 20(4). pp. 423-443.
Gustafsson, A., Johnson, M. D. and Roos, I., 2005. The effects of customer satisfaction,
relationship commitment dimensions, and triggers on customer retention. Journal of
marketing, 69(4). pp. 210-218.
Han, H. and Ryu, K., 2009. The roles of the physical environment, price perception, and
customer satisfaction in determining customer loyalty in the restaurant industry. Journal
of Hospitality & Tourism Research. 33(4). pp. 487-510.
Herington, C. and Weaven, S., 2007. Can banks improve customer relationships with high
quality online services?.Managing Service Quality. 17(4). pp.404 – 427.
Herington, C. and Weaven, S., 2009. E-retailing by banks: e-service quality and its importance to
customer satisfaction. European Journal of Marketing. 43(9/10). pp. 1220-1231.
Hu, H. H., Kandampully, J. and Juwaheer, T. D., 2009. Relationships and impacts of service
quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and image: an empirical study. The
Service Industries Journal. 29(2). pp. 111-125.
Kuo, Y. F., Wu, C. M. and Deng, W. J., 2009. The relationships among service quality,
perceived value, customer satisfaction, and post-purchase intention in mobile value-
added services. Computers in human behaviour. 25(4). pp. 887-896
Mahdi, S. O. M. and Dawson, P., 2007. The introduction of information technology in the
commercial banking sector of developing countries: voices from Sudan. Information
Technology & People. 20(2).pp.184 – 204.
McBurney, D. and White, T. 2009. Research Methods. Cengage Learning.
Merriam, B.S., 2009. Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation. 3rd ed. John
Wiley & Sons.
Mukherjee, A. and Nath, P., 2003. A model of trust in online relationship banking.International
Journal of Bank Marketing.21(1).pp.5 – 15.
Olsen, W., 2011. Data Collection: Key Debates and Methods in Social Research. SAGE.
Punch, F. K., 2009. Introduction to Research Methods in Education, SAGE.
Sapsford, R. and Jupp, V., 2006. Data Collection and Analysis. SAGE
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Smith, D. A., 2009. Internet retail banking: A competitive analysis in an increasingly financially
troubled environment. Information Management & Computer Security.17(2).pp.127 –
150.
Online
Schaechter, A., 2002. Issues in electronic banking: an overview[Online]. Available through:<
http://books.google.co.uk/books?
id=ldiZtMZgVAUC&pg=PA3&dq=online+banking+definition&hl=en&sa=X&ei=w23i
UbGOOqjR7Aa49IHICQ&ved=0CFQQ6wEwBQ#v=onepage&q=online%20banking
%20definition&f=false>. [Accessed on 9th Nov 2015].
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