Mobile banking and AI-enabled mobile banking: The differential effects of technological and non-technological factors on digital natives’ perceptions and behavior

The rapid growth of technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), in the banking industry has played a disrupting role in traditional banking channels. This study aims to investigate factors that influence the attitudes and perceptions of digital natives pertaining to mobile banking and comfort interacting with AI-enabled mobile banking activities.

Data were collected from 218 digital natives. This paper uses multivariate regression and two separate multiple regression analyses to examine the differential effects of technology-based (i.e. attitudes toward AI, relative advantage, perceived trust and security in specific mobile banking activities) and non-technology based (i.e. need for service, quality of service) factors on mobile banking usage and AI-enabled mobile banking services.

This study identifies determining factors for mobile banking and AI-enabled mobile banking services. Results indicate a divide in how digital natives perceive relative advantage between our two dependent variables. Consistent with previous studies, the relative advantage construct has the most impact on mobile banking usage. However, relative advantage was not significant for AI-enabled mobile banking, suggesting an extra layer of complexity that goes beyond convenient fast banking.

A limitation of this study is that it does not incorporate age groups outside of digital natives. Further research is needed to test for differential effects between age groups. In addition, the discovery of no significant impact of relative advantage on AI mobile banking warrants more research on the similarities and differences between mobile banking and AI-enabled mobile banking.

To better appeal to digital natives, it is suggested that the banking industry emphasize mobile banking’s anywhere/anytime access to financial accounts, as this is important to college-age customers who may not live near their local banking institution. Moreover, the paper suggests that improvement to mobile banking features for one-on-one interpersonal contact with bank employees is needed.

This study addresses the gap in the understanding of how digital natives perceive mobile banking in comparison to AI-enabled mobile banking services.