From Analogue to Digital Banking: Developments in the European Union from 2007 to 2019

Abstract

Research on banking regularly assumes that digitalisation has an impact on banking. This blanket assumption is not erroneous, but it is too inaccurate, too undifferentiated and probably only applies in the long term. Results of this study show that the customers’ habits and requirements and thus the willingness to accept digital technologies in the banking sector are changing within a significantly different speed. The spread ranges from almost complete use, as in Scandinavia, dynamic development, as in the Czech Republic and Greece, to almost complete rejection, as in Bulgaria and Romania. This paper examines and demonstrates the influence of various socio-demographic and emotional characteristics on the use of digital media. Shifts in customer behaviours are revealed and discrepancies are identified by time series analyses and factor analyses. The results reveal the forthcoming death of the bank branch network accompanied by a regionally varying acceptance of Internet and mobile banking. This area of tension requires banks to have a good understanding of customer requirements regarding the demand for digitisation in order to avoid misguided decisions. However, the bank’s side in the adoption process of new technologies by customers has been neglected by scientific studies so far. In order to measure the state of digitisation of banking services, a comparison equation is presented that allows banks to be benchmarked in terms of the degree of digitisation and enables banks to dynamically track changes in their customer portfolios.