Towards a conceptual framework for bank-as-you-go for the information age: A systematic review

Abstract

There is an assumption that the traditional banking system is conceivably not effective enough to meet the social demand of the information age in terms of customer engagement, feedback, interaction and communication. Historically, banking sectors have been challenged to maintain a customer-centred relationship as the demands and expectations of the information age customers of today differ when compared with those from decades ago. This paper proposes the development of a conceptual framework for financial institutes to adopt the social media banking platforms in delivering banking services, with the main objective of conceptualising the social media banking SMB systems to serve as marketing, engagement, communication, business operational and transaction tools to its prospective clients. With the advent of SMB platforms, there is a growing admiration of SM and the proliferation of broadband internet, smartphones, and mobile applications, and this has improved the use of SM tremendously. Notably, the world is beginning to experience a major transition with the degree to which people have accepted SM platforms as part of their daily routine and way of life. Nevertheless, in spite of its significance and recognition as well as the benefits that SM platforms portray, there is still some element of doubts among many, who are either concerned about how public domain pages, the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to mention but a few, will raise customers’ insecurity issues. It is apparent that many banking executives are finding it challenging, giving up some control over their public reputation and placing it in the hands of their counterparts or rivals. Through the conceptual framework development, the probable benefits of adopting SMB as a transactional tool and in-line with other related issues and concerns that may arise will be addressed. It cannot be overemphasised that SMB offers banking sectors varieties of business opportunities and the affordability to social interactiveness and social presence by enabling customers to connect, share interests and interact with businesses, which, in turn, impacts positively on customers’ loyalty and again transforms the approach in which banks engage with clients.

Keywords: Social media, customer satisfaction, engagement and retention, social media banking, social presence and information age, banking