A cross-cultural investigation into customer satisfaction with internet banking security

Consumer Internet banking has been fairly successful in South Africa, with all major retail banks providing this service to customers. Approximately one million Internet users make use of this channel, with the profile tending to be those with higher incomes and occupying managerial and professional jobs. Recent media attention given to security breaches with Internet banking provides an opportunity to assess what impact this has had on perceptions of security across different cultural groups. In a study examining cultural values of managers from different ethnic groups in South Africa, it was found that groups differed mainly on the dimension of uncertainty avoidance. In this study therefore it was posited that those groups with higher scores for uncertainty avoidance would react more strongly to perceived security threats given the uncertainty that this created, and would therefore be less satisfied with security than those lower in uncertainty avoidance. In order to investigate this proposition, data gathered from a survey of postgraduate and MBA students at two leading business schools in South Africa was analysed. Respondents were surveyed as to their banking habits, cultural values and satisfaction with Internet banking. The findings confirm the above proposition as those groups with higher uncertainty avoidance were less satisfied with security than those groups with lower uncertainty avoidance. The implications of these findings are discussed.