Financial services institutions invest in self–service technologies for various reasons. These include the demands to rationalise costs and to meet the channel preferences of a „technology- savvy‟ client base. Some advantages of self–service technologies (“SSTs”) include the optimisation of staff activities and faster and improved customer services. Retail banks experience various migration-related costs when migrating customers to an SST environment; in terms of both branch infrastructure and the development of employee skills. Some customers continue to favour face-to-face service interactions, which necessitates an identification and evaluation of the necessary skills required by employees to facilitate this migration process. This study aims to both identify and classify the requisite skills needed by financial services professionals to enable them to migrate customers from physical to electronic service channels; including ATMs. With the appropriate training and competencies, employees can guide customers more effectively through the migration process in a non-judgemental way. This would, in turn, address the lack of self-service technology understanding among customers in the longer term. The lack of support from skilled service employees has, in many instances, led to customers paying higher transactional fees and experiencing inconvenience at physical channels, thereby resulting in overall lower self-service usage. / Business Management / DBL

The purpose of this study was to examine the level of adoption, usage and factors that influence the adoption of electronic banking (e-banking) by small, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs) listed in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM). Despite efforts by commercial banks to promote e-banking (internet and cell phone banking) to its customers, the adoption rate for internet and cell phone banking appears to be low. Based on the literature reviewed, the SMME sector has been widely excluded from the formal banking services. It is also observed that e-banking can enable SMMEs to grow and enter international markets. Technology acceptance model (TAM) integrated with perceived risk theory (PRT) was used to investigate factors that influence adoption and usage of e-banking. The study followed a quantitative research approach. Respondents were selected using simple random sampling technique. A structured survey questionnaire was used to collect the data. The survey was conducted on 160 SMMEs in the CTMM with the assistance of fieldworkers. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), Pearson’s bivariate correlation, and multiple regression. The results revealed that perceived ease of use had a significant positive influence on the attitude towards e-banking. Perceived usefulness had a positive but insignificant influence on the attitude towards e-banking. Security risk was the only perceived risk dimension that had a significant negative influence on attitude towards e-banking. However, financial risk, privacy risk, performance risk and social risk had a positive and insignificant influence on attitude towards e-banking. It was envisaged that this study will enable banks to develop strategies that are aimed at increasing their SMME market share. / Finance, Risk management and Banking / M. Com. (Finance)

Financial services institutions invest in self–service technologies for various reasons. These include the demands to rationalise costs and to meet the channel preferences of a „technology- savvy‟ client base. Some advantages of self–service technologies (“SSTs”) include the optimisation of staff activities and faster and improved customer services. Retail banks experience various migration-related costs when migrating customers to an SST environment; in terms of both branch infrastructure and the development of employee skills. Some customers continue to favour face-to-face service interactions, which necessitates an identification and evaluation of the necessary skills required by employees to facilitate this migration process. This study aims to both identify and classify the requisite skills needed by financial services professionals to enable them to migrate customers from physical to electronic service channels; including ATMs. With the appropriate training and competencies, employees can guide customers more effectively through the migration process in a non-judgemental way. This would, in turn, address the lack of self-service technology understanding among customers in the longer term. The lack of support from skilled service employees has, in many instances, led to customers paying higher transactional fees and experiencing inconvenience at physical channels, thereby resulting in overall lower self-service usage. / Business Management / DBL