Are Islamic features enough to fulfil ethical service expectations? Insights from customer emotions in mobile banking

Purpose This study aims to examine the influence of core Islamic mobile banking services and customer emotions on satisfaction using a text mining approach. Design/methodology/approach The paper applies a lexicon-based dictionary method to identify service quality dimensions of Islamic mobile banking in Indonesia and develops explanatory models using panel data regression. Findings The results reveal that ease of use, convenience, perceived usefulness and adherence to Islamic attributes significantly contribute to customer satisfaction. This reflects the fulfilment of customers’ right to service parity with mobile banking in general, which forms the basis of their ethical service expectations. Moreover, positive emotions positively influence customer satisfaction, whereas negative emotions have the opposite effect. These findings demonstrate that core services in Islamic banking encompass beyond merely following Islamic principles; they also require reliable and user-centered operational performance. Therefore, Islamic banks should prioritize improvements in system updates, verification processes, financial and banking functionalities, and overall system stability. Deficiencies in these fundamental service attributes generate negative emotional responses, signaling unmet ethical service expectations and ultimately undermining customer satisfaction. Research limitations/implications The paper provides practical insights for Islamic bank managers to better understand deficiencies in their mobile banking services and to incorporate the role of customer emotions. Originality/value This study enhances understanding by integrating the technology acceptance model, the accessibility–diagnosticity model, and the multiple pathway anchoring and adjustment model to examine customer satisfaction in Indonesian Islamic mobile banking.