Over the last few decades, microfinance industry has played an essential role in alleviating poverty level and helping the underprivileged, by enabling access to myriads of financial services. Statistics from the World Bank reveals that, currently, only 4% of the underprivileged were served out of the 3 billion potential clients. Such results were due to several claims, particularly the operational and financial challenges faced by the MFIs in the constant flux, inviting more attentions towards its performance. While explicit focuses were given by many researchers towards mobile banking and Information Communication Technology (ICT) and online services in improving the MFIs performance, the study on how Social Media, as a rapidly growing online phenomenon, could affect the MFIs performance remain scarce. Hence, this study was aimed at investigating and clarifying the impact of social media on MFIs, based on four dimensional performance indicators: efficiency, financial sustainability, portfolio quality, and outreach. A model was developed utilising Resource Based-View (RBV) Theory, to test the relationship between social media application and organisational performance. A quantitative approach has been adopted employing from web-based questionnaires, to collect data from MFIs employees in developing countries such as Kenya, India and Jordan. Structured Equation Modelling (SEM) technique (i.e. SPSS and AMOS 20 software) was used as a tool to analyse the responses. Results revealed a significant influence of the social media over the MFIs performance, offering valuable insights to both researchers and practitioners in the domain of micro-finance, as well as social media – conforming that the adoption of social media as marketing, advertising and communication tools could significantly improve the MFIs performance. Keywords: Microfinance, Microfinance Institution Performance, Social Media, Resource Based View Theory.

Nesta dissertação são investigados os fatores que influenciam a adoção de inovações com base na proposta e aplicação de um modelo integrativo dentro do contexto de adoção do mobile banking. Para tanto, foram utilizados modelos consagrados de teorias de adoção de inovações e tecnologias e de previsão de comportamentos, considerando atitudes e intenção em relação ao comportamento, modelos estes aplicados de maneira integrada por alguns autores. Buscou-se então a proposição de um modelo que proporcionasse uma explicação mais aprofundada dos fatores antecedentes à adoção de uma inovação, e que também possibilitasse o estudo da relação entre esses fatores. Adicionalmente, comparou-se os fatores influenciadores de adoção de mobile banking, entre usuários e não usuários do serviço, de forma a identificar diferenças no processo de adoção entre os dois grupos. As principais contribuições desta dissertação são a identificação dos fatores mais importantes no processo de adoção do mobile banking e suas relações, e a proposição uma linha de pesquisa para estudos científicos sobre serviços móveis, área que tem obtido grande interesse dos pesquisadores. O método de coleta de dados utilizado nesta dissertação foi baseado em survey com questionários autoadministrados pela internet. Em relação à análise dos resultados, optou-se pelo uso do mínimo quadrado parcial (Partial Least Squares ou PLS) para a obtenção não apenas das relações dos construtos independentes e dependentes, mas também das relações existentes entre todos os construtos do modelo proposto. Destaca-se por fim que o modelo proposto possibilita a explicação elevada da proporção da variância do construto intenção, obtendo-se diferenças significativas entre os padrões de adoção de usuários e não usuários de mobile banking. Estes resultados possibilitam um avanço de um modelo teórico, para o delineamento de uma linha de pesquisa para futuros estudos sobre a adoção de serviços oferecidos por meio de telefone celular. / In this Project, factors that influence innovations adoption are investigated based on an integrative model applications proposal within mobile banking adoption context. Therefore, consecrated theoretical models, widely applied on innovation and technology adoption theories and behavior predicting based on attitudes and intentions towards a behavior, are considered integrated as previously proposed by some authors. In addition, the project proposes a model that allows a deeper investigation on antecedents factors towards innovation adoption and also studies existents relations within these factors. Furthermore, mobile banking users and non users adoption influence factors were compared targeting to investigate possible difference among the two groups. This projects main contributions are the identification of the most relevant factors within mobile banking adoption process and these factors relations among themselves and the proposition of a research line for scientific studies on mobile services adoption, area that has obtained great interest from researchers. Data collection method used in this project was based on the survey method with self administrated questionnaires over the internet. For data analysis, Partial Least Square (PLS) method was used to identify relations not only within independent and dependent constructs but also within all constructs in the proposed model. To sum up, the proposed model offers a high variance explanation of the intention construct, offering significant differences among mobile banking users and non users adoption patterns, considering a theory model that allows the possible definition of a research line for future research on adoption of services offered via a mobile phone.

Au cours de ces dernières années, les technologies mobiles ont créé des conditions de marché très concurrentielles. Face à cette nouvelle conjoncture, les banques ont lancé la banque mobile, une innovation technologique en milieu bancaire comme une nouvelle opportunité à saisir. Cette étude pose une question liée au cœur des principaux problèmes rencontrés dans le domaine bancaire : qui investit le plus dans les TIC, et qui vise à développer des relations à long terme avec ses clients. Afin de produire une valeur ajoutée sur les investissements technologiques, il devient important pour les banques d’assurer l’adoption de ces services par leurs clients dans un premier temps et d’assurer la survie de ces services (la continuité de l’utilisation) par le développement des relations durables et rentables avec les clients dans un deuxième temps. Ceci signifie que la compréhension des comportements des clients nécessite deux phases : la phase « adoption » et la phase « post-adoption ». La thèse vise, d’une part, à explorer les facteurs influençant l’adoption de la banque mobile par les clients et, d’autre part, à formuler un cadre explicatif de l’effet de ces facteurs pour établir et améliorer des relations entre les banques et leurs clients. L’analyse des données recueillies par questionnaire administré en face à face auprès de 282 répondants, identifie trois segments de clients : non utilisateurs, utilisateurs et adopteurs. L'analyse explicative réalisée par la méthode PLS relève le rôle important joué par quatre facteurs : l’utilité perçue, le risque perçu, la sécurité perçue et l’effort attendu dans les deux phases. / In recent years, mobile technologies have created very competitive market conditions. Facing this new environment, banks have launched mobile banking, a technological innovation in banking sector, as a new opportunity to seize. This study raises a question related to the heart of the main problems in banking: who invests the most in ICT, and who aims to develop long-term relationships with its clients. To produce added value on technological investments, it becomes important for banks to ensure the adoption of these services by their clients at first time and ensure the survival of these services (continuity of use) through the development of sustainable and profitable customer relationships in a second time. This means that the understanding of customer behavior requires two phases: the "adoption" phase and the "post-adoption" phase. The thesis aims, first, to explore the factors influencing the adoption of mobile banking by customers and, second, to formulate an explanatory framework of the effect of these factors to establish and improve relations between banks and their customers.The analysis of data collected by questionnaires administered face to face with 282 respondents identifies three customer segments: non-users, users and adopters. The explanatory analysis by the PLS method highlights the important role played by four factors: perceived usefulness, perceived risk, perceived safety and the expected effort in the two phases.

The modern environment of pervasive interconnectedness via mobile devices and services makes it important to understand the nature of customer-bank interactions and relationships. Businesses that offer mobile banking are trying to provide their customers with improved customer service and experiences. The objective of this study is to examine how customer experience of mobile banking influences loyalty towards the bank. This study focuses on the millennials in South Africa. Banks need to remain competitive in the ever-changing business environment. Millennials are one of the largest customer segments with a large digital and mobile appetite; as a result, they form a natural target for banks. To increase their customer base, banks need to ensure that their customer experience strategy caters for these young customers in accordance with their expectations. However, customer experience within mobile banking is under researched. Previous studies in this research area have focused on customer experience in traditional banking context. This study tries to fill the gap by exploring the factors that influence customer experience in mobile banking and also understand how this experience influences customer loyalty to their bank. Considering this, a broad literature review was done that revealed the factors that influence mobile customer experience. Based on literature a conceptual model was developed and this model was used a framework for investigating the research problem. This study used a mixed methods strategy and collected data from 344 mobile banking users via an online survey questionnaire and further, 10 semi-structured interviews were also conducted. The research hypotheses were tested through regression analysis and this resulted in 4 out of 8 research hypotheses being supported. Thematic analysis was used for both the open-ended questions in the survey and the 10 interviews. The results showed that convenience, ease of use and customization are the most significant factors that influence customer experience in mobile banking, whereas the customer experience was in turn found to have a significant influence on customer loyalty. Through conducting this research on millennials in South Africa, this study has expanded the knowledge of mobile banking research in the country. A valuable contribution was made by this study, as this study gave better insight into the factors that significantly influence the customer's experience of millennials in mobile banking. This study recommends that, it is important that banks as well as other firms that offer mobile banking offer a mobile app that is convenient and lets customers to perform their activities in a flexible way in their own time, easily and in a customizable manner. Therefore, should banks implement this study's recommendations it will be beneficial for them as this will result in increased loyalty of their millennial mobile banking customers.

With the convergence of banking services and mobile technologies, users are able to conduct banking services at any place and at any time through mobile banking (Gu, Lee&Suh, 2009). This research examines the factors influencing the adoption of mobile banking by the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) in South Africa, with a special focus on trust, perceived cost and perceived risk including the facets of perceived risks: performance risk, security/privacy risk, time risk, social risk and financial risk. The research model includes the original variables of extended technology acceptance model (TAM2) (Venkatesh&Davis, 2000). Data from this study was collected through a physical hardcopy survey in townships around Gauteng. The research has found that customers in the BOP will consider adopting mobile banking as long as it is perceived to be useful and perceived to be easy to use. But the most critical factor for the customer is cost; the service should be affordable. Furthermore, the mobile banking service providers, both the banks and mobile network providers, should be trusted. Trust was found to be significantly negatively correlated to perceived risk. Thus, trust plays a role in risk mitigation and in enhancing customer loyalty. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Цель этого исследования - изучить банки и банковские услуги в России, а также изучить зарубежные банки (Афганистан), где мы хотим использовать российский банковский опыт в зарубежных странах, таких как Афганистан, особенно мобильный банкинг, который используется не только в России, но и за пределами России, например, в Белоруссии, Украине, Таджикистане, Германии и т. д. Объект исследования – национальные кредитные системы РФ и Республики Афганистан. Предмет исследования – экономические отношения, возникающие в процессе взаимодействия двух национальных кредитных систем в условиях цифровизации банковских операций. использование мобильного банкинга в Афганистане. Практическая значимость исследования заключается в разработке предложений, реализация которых будет способствовать расширению возможностей банков РА по обслуживанию их международных операций с банками РФ в условиях цифровизации банковской деятельности. / The purpose of this study is to study banks and banking services in Russia, as well as study foreign banks (Afghanistan), where we want to use Russian banking experience in foreign countries such as Afghanistan, especially mobile banking, which is used not only in Russia, but also for outside Russia, for example, in Belarus, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Germany, etc. The object of the study is the national credit systems of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Afghanistan. The subject of the research is economic relations arising in the process of interaction of two national credit systems in the context of digitalization of banking operations. using mobile banking in Afghanistan. The practical significance of the study lies in the development of proposals, the implementation of which will help expand the capabilities of RA banks to service their international transactions with banks of the Russian Federation in the context of digitalization of banking activities.

This thesis addresses the issue of mobile banking and analyzes applications, which provides mobile banking services. Aim of this thesis is to compare individual applications and analyze different approaches of applications based on Java technologies. Structure of this thesis is divided into four main parts. First part describes composition of bank services. It defines traditional and direct banking and points out differences between both concepts. Then it tries to show the position of mobile banking within the hierarchy of the bank. Second part gives detailed information about mobile banking itself. There is a research of current mobile banking situation on Czech market in the third part. This research includes products comparison and assessment. The last part focuses on presenting principles and problems of development on mobile phones through Java and then it analyzes these Java solutions in practice. The main contribution of this thesis is to provide information for companies or banks that choose to implement their own new mobile banking solution. Then this thesis should serve as initial analysis, which defines key parts of banking applications and how they should be properly processed. It could help to create efficient and successful mobile banking solution.

Mobile phone service is increasing among low income populations; however, with over 1 billion mobile service users worldwide, many people still lack banking services. Banks do not reach out to the poor because of the high operational costs involved. Scholars and industry practitioners have indicated that mobile phones could be an alternative channel for delivering financial services to the less advantaged and unbanked, without requiring a traditional bank with a branch network. The purpose of this bounded case study was to explore the strategies bank managers used to implement the new mobile banking service to the Ethiopian community. The new product development theory served as the conceptual framework for this study. Twenty experienced bank managers were interviewed from the leading private bank in Ethiopia. Data were segmented and categorized. After member checking and triangulation, data were sorted into 4 themes: development, testing, commercialization of new products or services, and an organizational commitment to adopt new technologies and innovative processes. The findings may contribute to the body of knowledge regarding strategies bank managers can use for implementing and introducing new products in order to contribute to the prosperity of individuals, businesses, and communities.

Yes / In the last few years, several studies have examined the predictors of mobile banking (m-banking) adoption using the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). However, contradictory results in some of the UTAUT relationships were found in the existing literature. Therefore, we aim to clarify and synthesize the empirical findings from the m-banking studies published since 2004 by conducting weight and meta-analysis with a focus on the UTAUT theory. We also seek to identify the roles of moderating variables on each UTAUT path. A total of 364 path coefficients from 127 studies were relevant for data analysis. CMA software V3 was employed to combine the effect sizes. All UTAUT relationships were found to be significant. Performance expectancy emerged as the strongest antecedent of usage intention. We also find that usage intention is the most critical predictor of use behavior. It was also revealed that sample size and culture significantly moderated the linkages between facilitating conditions and usage intention, effort expectancy and usage intention, and usage intention and use behavior. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are also discussed toward the end.

Submitted by Mariana Dornelles Vargas (marianadv) on 2015-05-07T17:43:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Diógenes Bonfanti dos Santos.pdf: 1146572 bytes, checksum: e43f11e0a84818317b80281577aaa1a0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-07T17:43:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Diógenes Bonfanti dos Santos.pdf: 1146572 bytes, checksum: e43f11e0a84818317b80281577aaa1a0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-08-31 / Nenhuma / Este estudo foi realizado com objetivo de analisar o caso de adoção de serviços bancários móveis (mobile banking ou m-banking) e o perfil dos clientes que utilizam esse serviço em um banco no contexto brasileiro, o Banco do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (Banrisul). A pesquisa foi realizada por meio de um estudo de caso único no Banrisul, no qual foram realizadas entrevistas e análise de dados secundários. Foram pesquisadas as características de 628 usuários de mobile banking do banco pesquisado, contemplando-se 7046 acessos a esse serviço. A pesquisa utilizou como principal referencial teórico a Teoria de Difusão da Inovação (TDI) de Rogers (2003). Por meio da análise de dados foi possível identificar hábitos e características relacionadas ao comportamento dos usuários dos serviços de m-banking. O perfil do usuário de m-banking Banrisul encontrado foi: em geral é do gênero masculino, solteiro, possui curso superior, idade média de 33 anos (idades entre 26 a 35 anos), com renda mensal entre R$ 2.000,00 a R$ 3.000,00 Reais. Os principais serviços utilizados são: extrato de conta corrente (65,2%), saldo de conta corrente (30,4%) e transferências entre contas (2,6%), totalizando 98,2% dos serviços utilizados no período estudado. O conhecimento desses dados é importante, pois os usuários analisados podem ser considerados como os usuários inovadores ou adotantes iniciais de acordo com a TDI. O conhecimento de seu perfil e hábitos de acesso é útil para planejar ações futuras relacionadas à difusão do mobile banking na instituição pesquisada. O conhecimento do caso também é útil a outras instituições e pesquisadores interessados em práticas de mobile banking. / This study was conducted to analyze the case of adoption of mobile banking (mobile banking or m-banking) and the profile of customers who use this service on a bench in the Brazilian context, the Banco do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (Banrisul). The survey was conducted through a single case study in Banrisul, in which there were interviews and secondary data analysis. We investigated the characteristics of 628 users of mobile banking bank researched, covering 7046 to access this service. The survey used as the main theoretical Theory of Diffusion of Innovation (TDI) of Rogers (2003). Through data analysis it was possible to identify the habits and characteristics related to the behavior of users of m-banking services. The user profile of m-banking Banrisul was found: in general is male, single, have college degrees, average age 33 years (ranging from 26 to 35 years), with monthly income between R $ 2,000.00 R $ 3,000.00 reais. The main services used are: current account statement (65.2%), current account balance (30.4%) and transfers between accounts (2.6%), totaling 98.2% of services used during the study period. Knowledge of these data is important, because users were analyzed can be considered as innovative users or early adopters according to TDI. Knowing your profile and habits of access is useful for planning future actions related to the diffusion of mobile banking in this institution. The knowledge of the case is also useful to other institutions and researchers interested in mobile banking practices.