Mobile Banking: Overview of Most Common Theoretical
Foundations of Technology Adoption
Chama Jaride and Ahmed Taqi
Faculty of Juridical Economic and Social Sciences Tetouan, Abdelmalek Essaâdi University, Morocco
Keywords: Mobile banking, M-banking, Technology adoption, Customer relationship management.
Abstract: In a connected economy, financial services must be dynamic, customer-centric, available and compatible
with consumers' lifestyles. As an innovative technology, Mobile Banking (M-banking) represents a good
example of new technology allowing customers to produce financial transactions via mobile devices. The
paper aims at determining different theoretical foundations adopted by several researchers who try to
explain the perceptions and behaviours of customers with regard to mobile banking as well as the factors
that could predict the use of mobile banking services by banking customers. This study provides an
overview by analyzing the current state of art in knowledge of mobile banking and its theoretical
foundations. The results suggest the predominance of technology adoption models such as TAM, UTAUT
and UTAUT2.
1 INTRODUCTION
The advent of technology has transformed the
banking sector. Today, banks are investing heavily
in mobility, which has become an essential strategic
axis for the development of the sector. It's a change
in the way that banking services are used, in the
bank / customer relationship, and simply in the way
of money management. This phenomenon is so
important that IT professionals have described it as
one of the most important developments in the field
of business and mobile commerce (Oliveira and al,
2014).
Some authors show that M-banking strengthens
relationships and emphasizes its benefits for
customer relationship management. Thus, banks
seems not only willing to integrate the channels of
mobile banking services into their logistics structure
to provide better service to their customers, but also
to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of these
channels (Sharma and Sharma, 2019).
It has been noticed that user attitudes towards
accepting a new information system has an impact
on its success (Al-Somali and al, 2009). The
problem is that financial institutions still do not have
an exact and precise idea of the behaviors of
consumers to accept, use and be loyal through the
use of mobile banking services (Shareef and al,
2018). Banks do not have enough information on
why customers use mobile banking services and why
they will continue to use them in the long term
(Albashrawi and Motiwalla, 2020). This clearly
explains that mobile banking remains a relevant and
interesting research topic around the world,
especially in terms of the adoption of this innovative
channel and its feasibility to gain customer
satisfaction and loyalty.
The following section includes a presentation of
mobile banking benefits for both costumers and
banking institutions. Then a literature review is
presented in the next section before addressing the
theoretical foundations of technology acceptance
and a comparative analysis of main theoretical
models of technology adoption. Then a discussion
section is presented before formulating some
conclusions.
2 MOBILE BANKING BENEFITS
M-banking is a new technology that is increasingly
present in banking establishments given to its many
advantages in terms of reducing operating costs and
improving customer relationship management. This
service also presents many benefits to banking
customers in terms of access and mobility. Mobile

banking has become the self-service delivery
channel that enables banks to deliver information
and offer services to their customers with more
convenience (Lin, 2013).
From the beginning, Mobile banking services
allowed customers to perform account balance
inquiries, surveys of transaction history, fund
transfers and bill payments via mobile devices.
Indeed, when it was launched, mobile banking only
provided general banking transactions. In the present
times, mobile banking application offer more
complex services such as credit request or financial
investments.
(Lin, 2013) explains that mobile banking is a set
of mobile commerce applications that allow
customers to perform both conventional transactions
(e.g fund transfers), but also more advanced
operations (e.g trading and portfolio management).
(Oliveira and al, 2014) confirms that M-banking
includes three components which are mobile
accounting (e.g check book requests, blocking lost
cards, transferring money or insurance policies
subscription ), mobile brokerage (sale and purchase
of financial instruments), and mobile financial
information services (e.g balance requests, statement
requests, exchange rate information).
Mobile banking services thus meet customers
needs and also business needs. Indeed, it is clearly
demonstrated that, as a self-service technology, it is
an important factor in reducing staff costs. By
replacing physical retail banking with intensive
labor to automated processes, banks improve their
productivity, efficiency and profitability (Asad and
al, 2016).
3 LITERATURE REVIEW
Mobile banking has seen exponential use around the
world and, as a result, spectacular growth in the
literature. Examining and explaining the adoption of
mobile banking services is at the center of research
of several academics and practitioners around the
world.
Much research has been used and sometimes
even combined several theoretical models of
technology acceptance. This is the case of the study
carried out in 2020 by (Le and al ,2020) among 370
customers that have never used or are currently
using mobile banking in Vietnam. This work, based
on the theoretical model of UTAUT in its first and
second version and TAM, has shown that some
factors have been assessed to be more important
than others in affecting intention to use mobile
banking services. First, the authors cite social
influence which means that an individual, who
perceives and uses mobile banking services, is
strongly influenced by people and environment
around him. Secondly, they address the
compatibility that corresponds to the user's external
environment that will help him overcome the
obstacles associated to the use of new information
technology. Then come other factors such as
performance expectancy, perceived ease of use,
perceived trust, perceived cost, and behavioral
intention. When these factors come together, this
leads to a high level of use of mobile banking
services through regular use.
(Alalwan and al, 2017) developed a conceptual
model adapted from the UTAUT2 model, but this
time not by combining it with another model but by
integrating an external variable which is trust. The
objective of this Jordanian study carried out on a
sample of 343 users was to study the most important
factors that predict the actual adoption of M-Baking
sevices. Several explanatory variables have been
mentioned in this work such as performance
expectancy, hedonic motivation and trust.
In the work of (Masrek and al, 2014), the authors
has also studied the relationship between
technological trust and satisfaction in mobile
banking. Masrek and al used a quantitative research
methodology via a survey involving 312 M-banking
consumers in Malaysia. The results of the study
confirmed the importance of technological trust in
predicting satisfaction in mobile banking services.
(Albashrawi and Motiwalla, 2020) explained in
the United states during 2020 the acceptance of
mobile banking using the UTAUT model by
integrating another model witch is the information
Systems Success of Delone and Mclean (ISSM). The
approach adopted by the authors combined subjective
measures that capture perceptions of system use (e.g
by asking users) with objective metrics that capture
actual system usage (by analyzing users' bank files in
terms of frequency and duration of use), in order to
avoid the potential biases generated by
overestimating or underestimating of system user.
The results of the study highlighted, among other
things, that bank practitioners should focus on
improving the quality of M-banking service without
forgetting social influence, because both of these
factors have proven to be essential for consumers of
mobile banking in USA.
The study by (Lin, 2013) was carried out among
300 Taiwanese bank customers to assess the
importance of the quality of mobile banking factors
between two groups of customers, a first group with

little experience in mobile banking and a second
group with high experience in mobile banking.
According to the author, the quality of mobile
service is increasingly recognized as a critical factor
for a successful implementation of mobile banking.
The results of the study confirm that customers with
low and high experience generally consider the
quality of mobile service in terms of speed,
reliability, convenience and personalization as
essential elements for a high quality of M-banking
witch can increase customers' trust in their bank.
(Oliveira and al, 2014) combined three models of
information systems, namely Unified Theory of
Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), Task
Technology Fit (TTF), and Initial Trust Model
(ITM), to better understand the adoption of mobile
banking services in Portugal among 194 customers.
The study found that the most important concepts
behind the adoption of M-banking are behavioral
intention of customers to adopt a new technology,
facilitating conditions, performance expectancy and
trust. According to Oliveira and al, customers are
more willing to trust in a new service such as mobile
banking if company’s reputation is good and also if
a risk insurance service is implemented.
The conceptual model developed by (Baabdullah
and al) in 2018 used the information Systems
Success of Delone and Mclean (ISSM) by
combining it with the UTAUT2 model in order to
verify the way the use of M-banking could
contribute to satisfaction and loyalty of customers in
Saudi Arabia.
The results of this study conclude that customers
who see M-banking as a reliable communication
channel for acces to bank services, develop a feeling
of loyalty and satisfaction towards their banking
institutions.
The effects of mobile banking adoption on
customer relationship management, satisfaction and
customer interaction are also analyzed in the study
conducted by (Hamidi and Safareeyeh, 2018) in
Iran. The autors conclude that using mobile banking
technology allows more interaction and
communication with customers and that is clearly on
the advantage of customer relationship management.
4 THEORETICAL
FOUNDATIONS OF
TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION
The literature on the adoption of Information
Technology (IT) provides several theoretical
models. A considerable number of researchers have
formulated different models relevant to the field of
IT in order to further explain the acceptance of
technology from a user perspective. However, three
theoretical models stand out and come up most often
in research on the adoption of M-banking
technology. The Technology Acceptance Model
(TAM) established by (Davis and al, 1989), the
Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of
Technology (UTAUT) established by (Venkatesh
and al, 2003) and the second version of the Unified
Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2
(UTAUT 2) developed by (Venkatesh and al , 2012)
after.
These theoretical models of the adoption of
systems informations have been validated by a
variety of research fields including mobile banking
over the past decade (Albashrawi and Motiwalla,
2020). The following table presents a comparative
analysis of the different variables that constitute
them.
Table 1: Comparative table of main theoretical models of
technology adoption
TAM UTAUT
UTAUT
2
External
Variables
X
Perceived
Usefulness
X
Perceived Ease
of Use
X
Attitude
Towards Usin
g
X
Behavioral
Intention
X X X
Performance
Expectanc
y
X X
Effort
Ex
p
ectanc
y
X X
Social Influence X X
Facilitating
Conditions
X X
Gender X X
Age X X
Experience X X
Voluntariness of
Use
X
Hedonic
Motivation
X
Price Value X
Habit X

4.1 Technology Acceptance Model
(Tam)
The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is the
most widely used technology adoption model cited
by many researchers, with over 117,000 citations on
Google Scholar
1
in 2020 of which nearly 20,000 are
Scopus indexed.
TAM was introduced first for information
systems by Davis and al in 1986 and then developed
in 1989. Following a longitudinal study with 107
users in order to identify the appropriate
functionalities and interfaces of systems information
to end users. The authors present three essential
theoretical constructs which are perceived
usefulness, ease of use, and behavioral intention.
Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use
are two beliefs that create behavioral intention.
While behavioral intention is favorable to the use of
the technology and therefore affects the actual use.
These are for Davis and al the main determinants of
user attitudes towards the adoption of new
technologies.
The TAM model has been the measure of several
empirical studies. Many researchers have introduced
additional variables to the TAM or they have
combined it with other models to suggest new
conceptual models (Le, 2020), (Hassan and Wood,
2020), (Watat and Madina, 2019), (Gumussoy and
al, 2018), (Filali Halime, 2017) and (Mostafa,
2015).
According to (Boonsiritomachai and
Pitchayadejanant, 2017), the popularity of TAM
model is probably due to two aspects. First of all,
TAM was created to analyse the adoption of
technology in different cultural and technological
contexts with different levels of user expertise.
Secondly, TAM has been the subject of numerous
empirical studies in different fields of research,
which in conclusion support its overall explanatory
power. Indeed, its strong presence in the literature
has made it a measurement scale with high validity
for over thirty years.
However, some researchers have criticized the
TAM model and recommended that it be extended to
include other variables in order to strengthen it.
1
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=fr&as_sdt=0%2C5
&q=technology+acceptance+model+tam&oq=TAM,
Accessed on 23/08/2020
4.2 Unified Theory of Acceptance and
Use of Technology (UTAUT)
The second theoretical model cited in many recent
studies is the Unified Theory of Acceptance and
Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Albashrawi and
Motiwalla, 2020), (Giovanis and al, 2019) (Nugraha
and al, 2018), and (Barati and Mohammadi, 2009).
This model is also widely used by several
researchers, with nearly 24,000 citations on Google
Scholar
2
, of which more than 2300 are Scopus
indexed.
This model has been proposed as an extension of
the popular TAM which aims to explain the
intention of users to adopt an information system. It
is considered as an influential theory in the context
of the adoption of new technologies.
Venkatesh and his co-authors proposed in 2003
this model through a study of 215 users. They claim
that four elements are the antecedents of behavioral
intention, namely performance expectancy, effort
expenctancy, social influence and facilitating
conditions.
Performance expectancy is the extent to which
people believe that using mobile banking services
will help them to achieve performance gains.
According to Venkatesh and al, this is the degree to
which the use of a technology will provide benefits
to consumers.
Effort expectancy is linked to the ease of access
to the M-banking service and the effort that will be
made in this regard.
Social influence is presented by Venkatesh and
al as the extent to which consumers perceive other
important people such family and friends believe
that they should use a particular technology.
Facilitating conditions represent the degree to
which people find it easy to connect and use mobile
banking services (e.g setting up an assistance
service).
According to the authors, performance
expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence
affect behavioral intention. While behavioral
intention combined with the facilitating conditions,
determines the use of technology. Age, gender,
experience and voluntariness of use are presented by
the authors as moderating variables into this model.
2
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=fr&as_sdt=0%2C5
&q=unified+theory+of+acceptance+and+use+of+techn
ology+UTAUT&btnG=, Accessed on 23/08/2020.

4.3 Unified Theory of Acceptance and
Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT 2)
Venkatesh and al presented a second version of the
UTAUT model which is the UTAUT2 to study
technology adoption especially in the context of
Mobile Banking through a survey of 1512 mobile
internet consumers (Venkatesh et al., 2012) .
The authors have introduced to UTAUT three
constructs which are hedonic motivation which is
the pleasure felt from using technology, the value of
prize because consumers must pay the costs
associated with purchasing devices and subscribing
to the service, and habit, which is the extent to
which consumers tend to automatically adopt certain
behaviors.
The aim of the authors was to make the model
more suited to the context of the use of technologies
by the general public. This is successful given that
UTAUT 2 has been the subject of several studies
around the world (Merhi and al, 2019), (Baabdullah ,
2018), (Alalwan, 2017), and (Boonsiritomachai and
Pitchayadejanant, 2017).
5 DISCUSION
The existing literature is full of studies that have
discussed the adoption of mobile banking among
users, on the basis of the aforementioned theoretical
models. Indeed, many theoretical foundations have
supported the conceptualization of several research
models dealing with M-banking.
This literature review allowed us to identify
most present theoretical foundations in previous
work, namely TAM, UTAUT and UTAUT 2 models
then to establish a comparative analysis of different
variables that constitute them with the aim of
highlighting the various points of convergence and
divergence between these models.
For this purpose, behavioral intention is the
common variable of the three theoretical models.
The authors of this literature review consider
behavioral intention as a cornerstone of M-banking
adoption.
Variables such as perceived usefulness and
perceived ease of use were introduced by TAM.
UTAUT and UTAUT 2 share several variables in
common such as, Effort Expectancy, Social
Influence, Facilitating Conditions and Performance
Expectancy. While other variables are specific to
each of the two models such as voluntariness of use
for UTAUT or hedonic motivation, price value and
habit for UTAUT2.
By eliminating the variable of voluntariness of
use and integrating new variables, the authors
attempt to adopt the second version of UTAUT to
the business environment of mobile banking from
consumers perspective.
This work also allowed us to observe that several
researchers do not use a single model to study
technological adoption, but attempt to combine two
or more theoretical models in their works. In
addition, many studies integrate new explanatory
variables into these models, in order to explore
better the adoption of M-banking technology by
customers.
6 CONCLUSION
In the current digital age, mobile banking has a
double benefit: it serve the interests of banks and
those of its customers. M-banking plays an
important role in helping banks to acquire new
customers and developing the relationship with
existing consumers. It allows to meet their
constantly changing requirements, satisfy them with
a distinct value and then create a competitive
advantage.
It is also one of the most effective tools that have
emerged to minimize costs and lighten the work load
for banking staff to allow them to focus their efforts
on other more complex and profit generating
activities.
Moreover, financial institutions develop and
promote this service because it offers the possibility
of placing different products to several customer
segments and thus allowing to maintain profitable
relationships (Tam and Oliveira, 2019).
The main motivation behind the above-
mentioned theoretical models of technology
adoption has been to go beyond the barriers that
hinder the adoption of M-banking in order to
increase the number of clients using this technology.
The importance of adopting and implementing
electronic banking services as a means of reducing
operational and transactional costs and increase
customer satisfaction and loyalty is validated, but
they are some prerequisite for this like provide
customers a support that is secure, complete, easy to
use and delivered under favorable conditions.
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