Drivers of Bank /Branch Switching Intentional Behaviour in Retail Banking: Evidence from Indian Banking Customers

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to identify and examine the factors that are significant barriers to bank/ branch switching in India from the retail customer’s perspective. The research design was causal cross sectional and primary data was collected using structured questionnaire. The research was conducted between Sep 2018 to Nov 2018.Target population was retail bank customers of nine banks (six nationalized and three private) of India. Sample frame was the bank customers who visited the bank on the days of the study and sample size was 450 (50 customers each bank). The result of the study revealed that eight factors namely Price, Service quality, Switching cost, Reputation of bank, Promotional advertising, Response to service failure, Customer satisfaction, Innovative service product offerings significantly affects switching intention while  Location of bank and Involuntary switching had insignificant effect on switching intention with a predicted switching rate of 24.22%. The model explains 80.6% variation in switching intention. Price, Response to service failure and Innovative service product offerings were three important critical factors for bank switching. Therefore, there is a need for banks to review their bank charges or transaction fees, they must be very responsive to the service failures and should come out with innovative schemes to have a competitive edge.

Keywords: Retail banking, customer switching, Price, Service quality, Switching cost, Customer satisfaction.

DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/54-01

Publication date:March 31^st 2019