Electronic Banking and Financial Performance of Commercial Banks in Kenya

Abstract

Information technology has changed the traditional ways of doing business to a digital and electronic way that has led to globalization. The banking industry has been forced by the wave of electronic payment system in the business environment to change from its traditional ways such as: long queues as customers waited to be served, delay in the clearing house as representatives of different banks waited to settle their dues and manual work that resulted to errors. The main purpose of the study was to determine the effect of electronic banking on the financial performance of commercial banks in Kenya. The specific objectives were to determine the extend of internet, mobile, automated teller machine and debit/credit card banking adoption and its effect on financial performance. The study covered a period of five years that is from the year 2011 to the year 2015 and adopted descriptive research design. The data collected was analyzed by the use of both descriptive and inferential statistics procedures. Primary and secondary data was collected from the 34 commercial banks that responded leading to a respond rate of 79.04% out of the 43 commercial banks. The trade analysis showed that internet banking was recognized and accepted by the Kenyan commercial banks and the Kenyans as a way of transacting. Electronic banking was found to be positive and significantly related to the financial performance of the commercial banks in Kenya. This was attributed by an R Square of 0.688 for Return On Assets, 0.63 for Net Profit and 0.277 for Return On Equity indicating that the independent variables in the study were able to give information of up to 68.8%, 63% and 27.7% respectively while the remaining 31.2%, 27% and 72.3% could not be explained in the study but could be explained using other variables outside the study. All the independent variables were (internet banking, Mobile banking, Automated Teller Machine banking and Debit/Credit banking) found to be positively and significantly related to the Return On Assets while only mobile banking and internet banking were found to be positively and significantly related to Net Profit since their p Values were less 0.05. Automated Teller Machine banking showed a positive relation that was insignificant with the Return On Equity.The study recommends that, electronic banking should be employed by commercial banks through proper management policies since it has shown improved efficiency and financial performance. For further studies, areas of crime technology, quality of banking services, electronic fund transfer and performing loans should be looked at.

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