The research methodology focuses on an investigative study of the data sources made available for this study as also statistics derived from Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) and other investigative studies carried out on the subject. The Research Questions have been defined as follows. • What has been the type of growth witnessed by internet banking since 2000? • What are the defining features of internet banking, motivators and demotivators most likely to influence customers? • What are the causal reasons for banks to adopt and push internet banking?
The texts and journals selected for the study have been made available from online libraries as well as those arranged by the researcher. They have been chosen for information in sequential order to assess the thinking on internet banking since its introduction in a restricted manner in the mid nineties. Details of texts chosen have been listed in the bibliography. Some of these consulted texts have been quoted in the literature review,. Data availability has been restricted to the voluminous data available from the SCF 2004 and PEW surveys for 2000 and 2004.
A number of personal interviews, eighteen in all have been carried out, all from people known to the researcher. They are personally known to the researcher and have been chosen accordingly to make the personal interviews and responses as genuine as possible. They live in Boston, Massachusetts, San Francisco, California and Phoenix, Arizona. While the fact that the respondents live in geographically distant locations has happened not by choice, but because they are known to the researcher and they merely happen to live in the stated locations, the wide dispersal does provide for a Pan American response.
All members of the sample group are respondents, earning citizens, males and females in equal number. All respondents are in the age group of twenty five to thirty five and as such belong both to Generation X (ages 28 to 39) and Generation Y (ages 18 to 27). Considering the small number of respondents the interview questionnaires were qualitative in approach and open ended. The interview was structured to elicit a qualitative response to their feelings about internet banking and worked on the following issues
• Experience with physical banking • Experience with on line or electronic banking apart from internet, ATM cards, Debit cards, etc • Compatibility with PCs and internet • Introduction to internet banking • Services being taken from internet banking, if at all • Motivators and demotivators, anytime, anywhere, complexity, safety, ease of use, snags and breakdowns, service quality • Future usage, go fully with internet or adopt clicks and bricks (internet plus physical) approach.