Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The term electronic banking (e-banking, virtual banking, or online banking) usually refers to all forms of banking services and transactions performed through electronic means. These innovative forms suddenly emerged in the early 1980s as an effective delivery channel for traditional banking products when Nottingham Building Society and four New York banks (Citibank, Chase Manhattan, Chemical, and Manufacturers Hanover) provided home banking services. Unfortunately, these early efforts were difficult to use and relatively unpopular ( Cronin 1997 ). The targeted use of electronic or virtual technologies nowadays allows customers to rapidly perform a wide variety of actions, such as checking their account balances, paying their bills (or taxes), transferring funds or trading stocks, in a remote way, without visiting a bricks-and-mortar institution (i.e., a physical branch). Banks can now exist “without paper, without geographical limitations, and without ever closing the doors to customers” ( Nath et al. 2001 : 23). This remarkable convenience made online services very popular to clients of both retail and corporate banking. E-banking added wholly new dimensions of functional quality to the banking industry by smartly operating “costs minimization and revenue maximization” ( Simpson 2002 : 315). Hence, banks seem to be aware of “the strategic and operational value of the Internet ... log in or subscribe to read full text