THE EFFECT OF FINANCIAL DIGITALIZATION ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN COMMERCIAL BANKS IN UGANDA; A CASE OF EQUITY BANK UGANDA LIMITED
Author: Twinamasiko Emmanuel, Kifanta Sanday*, Lule Simon, Kabahuma Irene, Dr. Mutumba Geoffrey S, Dr. Kyagulanyi Ronald, Kakundwa Naome & Erugu Elijah
ABSTRACT
Banking has always been a highly information intensive activity that relies heavily on information technology (IT) to acquire, process and deliver the information to all relevant customers. Finance digitalization is a modern innovation which entails the integration of multiple technologies and strategies that enable the finance function to deliver value in the digital age (Mosteanu, 2020). The study made a critical analysis of financial digitalization as a tool for customer satisfaction in commercial banks in Uganda centered on findings from a sample of 280 Equity Bank Uganda customers. The Specific objectives of the study were; (i) to examine the effect of E -banking on Customer Satisfaction., (ii) to determine the effect of financial technology on the customer satisfaction, (iii) to establish the relationship between data analytics and customer satisfaction.
The study adopted a descriptive survey design with both qualitative and quantitative methods and used a structured self-administered questionnaire and interviews to collect data. The collected quantitative data was analyzed in SPSS for correlations and linear regressions to determine the effect of financial digitalization on customer satisfaction and corroborated with thematically analyzed qualitative data guided by the study objectives. The findings show that e-banking has a significant positive effect on customer satisfaction in Ugandan commercial banks (r=.814**, Sig=.000). The results further indicate that Financial technology has a strong positive effect on customer satisfaction (r=.739**, Sig=.000). Finally, the results showed that there exists a significant and a strong positive relationship between data analytics and customer satisfaction (r=.719**, Sig=.000). The study concluded that financial digitalization is a significant effective tool for customer satisfaction improvement in commercial banks in Uganda. Financial digitalization facilitates customers’ satisfaction by generally allowing for remote and wider service access, reliability, convenience, better user experience and improved transaction quality and security. Therefore, the researchers recommend that commercial banks should strengthen efforts to establish more e- banking channels and promote uptake of e-banking services. This will increase the scope of banking service accessibility across the country.
Keywords: Banking, financial digitalization -banking, Customer Satisfaction, information technology, commercial banks and service accessibility.
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