Provision of electronic banking in the UK and the Republic of Ireland

Electronic or online banking is the newest delivery channel to be offered by the retail banks in many developed countries and there is wide agreement that this channel will have a significant impact on the market. Aims to quantify the current provision of electronic services by major retail banking organisations in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Additional insight into the banks‘ adoption of this new channel is gained by exploring two areas important in the analysis of new offerings, that is: an organisation‘s approach to innovation; and their view of the current and future markets. By use of a mailed questionnaire, it was found that 25 per cent of the banks in the UK and the Republic of Ireland which responded to this survey are already offering online transactional services to consumers in their homes. The largest group of respondents (50 per cent) are those that are currently testing or developing such services, while just 25 per cent of the respondents were in organisations not providing or developing such services. It is also found that the organisation‘s vision of the future, their prediction of customer acceptance, which tends to be very low, and their organisational culture of innovation are the most important of the suggested factors in their adoption of electronic delivery.