Guest editorial
Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Bank Marketing, Volume 28, Issue 5
The special issue will focus on mobile financial services, including topics related to mobile banking and payments. Despite the rapid diffusion of new mobile devices, mobile banking services have not been widely adopted by bank customers in the developed world. One of the main reasons, according to the interviews conducted for this editorial, is the high penetration of online banking. Quite surprisingly, mobile financial services seem to be more important for consumers without online banking accounts. Thus, companies offering mobile banking services have reported high growth levels in countries such as India,China and Africa in general. This is also evidenced by the submissions received for the special issue. We have, for example, two papers dealing with Brazilian markets, where the online banking penetration is lower than in many other countries.
In countries with high online banking penetration, for example, in most parts of Europe, the most frequently used mobile financial services to date have been notifications and alert services conducted with SMS technology. According to the interviews for the editorial, consumers in Europe have been interested in getting notifications of their account balance, especially on certain days of the month. Notifications for arrived electronic invoices have also been in high demand.
The special issue has three main objectives. First, both academics and practitioners need better conceptualisations of mobile financial services. What services are included under the term? What are the most important and most frequently used ones in different parts of the world? For instance, academic research has so far mostly examined mobile banking, and less attention has been paid to other forms of mobile financial services such as authentication or different types of payment services. This editorial will for its part answer these questions.
Second, although practitioners argue that the mobile financial service industry knows the demand for mobile financial services among its consumers quite well, academic research has just started to emerge. As could be expected,most submissions received for this special issue deal with consumers and their intention to use mobile banking. Thus the special issue definitely fills some gaps in our knowledge related to consumer motivations to use financial services via mobile devices.
Third, both researchers and businesses will definitely benefit from studies that give insights into the development of the industry, the underlying business models and the challenges associated with the business models. Therefore, the special issue will also cover the third objective with this editorial and with one practice-oriented viewpoint paper.
The special issue consists of five research papers and one viewpoint article. The first article “The moderating effect of gender in the adoption of mobile banking”, co-authored by Hernan E. Riquelme and Rosa E. Rios,represents an adoption model of mobile banking and tests the moderating role of gender in the adoption. The two following articles, “Mobile banking rollout in emerging markets: evidence from Brazil”, co-authored by Pedro Cruz, Lineu Barretto Filgueiras Neto, Pablo Muñoz-Gallego and Tommi Laukkanen, and “The role of information in mobile banking resistance”,co-authored by Tommi Laukkanen and Vesa Kiviniemi, examine obstacles to the adoption of mobile banking. These two articles include data from Brazilian internet users and bank customers in Finland. In addition, the article “Mobile banking: proposition of an integrated adoption intention framework”, by Júlio Püschel, José Afonso Mazzon and José Mauro C. Hernandez investigates the adoption of mobile banking technology in Brazil. The final research paper, “Predicting young consumers’ take up of mobile banking services”, co-authored by Nicole Koenig-Lewis, Adrian Palmer and Alexander Moll, further contributes to our understanding of the barriers related to the adoption of mobile banking services in Germany. Lastly, but no means least, in this special issue, I am pleased to present the viewpoint “Alternatives for banks to offer secure mobile payments”, authored by Liisa Kanniainen. This viewpoint is based on the work conducted by the Mobey Forum, and represents a framework of the mobile financial services ecosystem and value chain and describes different secure element options.
Taken together, the six articles in this special issue provide new insights into the understanding of the adoption of mobile financial services across various markets. As can be seen, the research papers all deal with mobile banking. However, as noticed in this editorial and in the viewpoint article,mobile banking is just one form of mobile financial services. I hope that in the future, academics and practitioners alike start to examine other forms of mobile financial services as well. In particular, there seems to be strong interest in mobile payments in the market that should also guide future work in this field.
This special issue could not have been accomplished without the help of several people. First, I would like to thank the editor of the International Journal of Bank Marketing, Professor Jillian Farquhar. Without her help,the special issue would not have been completed. I am also grateful to all the other people at Emerald who have been involved with this project. My special thanks also go to the reviewers of the papers and contributors. All papers went through a double-blind review, and as a result, several promising papers had to be excluded from this issue. Finally, I would like to thank industry experts Liisa Kanniainen and Bo Harald for their valuable time in providing insights into the industry of mobile financial services.
Enjoy reading the issue.
Heikki KarjaluotoProfessor at the School of Business and Economics, University of Jyvaskyla, Jyvaskyla, Finland
