Understanding the Adoption of Electronic Banking in China

Electronic banking (e-banking), facilitated by various Electronic Commerce (EC) technologies, has helped commercial banks to stay competitive through productivity gains, transaction cost reduction and customer service improvement. Despite its benefits, however, developing countries still lag behind developed countries in the adoption of e-banking. To address the lack of studies on e-banking adoption in developing countries, this paper explores factors impacting e-banking adoption in China, as an example of a developing country. Facing an intense competition from foreign-owned banks, Chinese domestic banks have recently been actively engaged in e-banking initiatives. A research framework developed based on technology-organizational-environmental framework is used to guide the study. The findings from this study involving one of the four state-owned banks complement the existing knowledge in this area to better understand the adoption and development of e-banking in China. 1