Chat banking adoption by retail banking clients in South Africa

Abstract

Digital banking has been growing rapidly and many institutions are introducing different convenient option to process financial transactions. Retail banking clients have a number of banking channels offered by banks. Chat Banking is one of the ‘new’ channels in retail banking and is an effective and convenient way to conduct banking transactions. This study helps discover why clients are slow in adopting to Chat banking and also analyses customer behaviour in order to understand how banks can grow the channel and the clients perception to the channel. Research method used is qualitative and results were gathered using an online survey. 342 respondents replied to the survey which resulted in receiving great insight on the study. Insights highlight how clients use multiple channels and are more aligned to use one of the traditional digital channels rather than recently introduced channels like chat banking. Clients who completed the survey seem to be satisfied with mobile application. One important benefit about Chat Banking is that it uses low bandwidth which is cost effective for most South Africans, as a high percentage live in poverty. Respondents who completed the survey are not impacted by infrastructure and do not live in areas like townships or rural. Chat Banking will work best with the low LSM and unbanked market