Undergraduates' Perception of Sms Banking in Labuan: An Empirical Analysis
Hanudin Amin, Suddin Lada, Mohd Rizal Abdul Hamid, Geoffrey Harvey Tanakinjal · International Journal of Business and Society · 2006
ABSTRACT Mobile phone for banking purpose is crucial for those who are busy with daily routine activities, especially those who are employed. In contrast, mobile phone is evolved among undergraduate students as a key social tool to connect with family members, friends and lecturers. The objective of this study is to identify the key points which relevant to the students' perception over SMS banking by the use of a survey conducted during July September 2005. This research used university students as the sample, namely from Labuan International Campus-Universiti Malaysia Sabah. A total of 317 students were approached which was considered as a preliminary way to observe their perception over SMS banking. Through various SPSS analyses, we discovered that 38 percent of the male respondents and 61 percent of the female respondents know what is SMS? Surprisingly, only female respondents used SMS banking with 0.95 percent, which is consistent with the study by Laforet and Li (2005) and Howcroft, Hamilton and Hewer (2002). Findings also discovered that all of the socio-demographic elements have their own level of significant. In general, it can be concluded that student's perception were not homogeneous and an education level was insufficient to explain the SMS banking usage among the respondents. Keywords: Mobile phone; SMS; Banking; Undergraduate students. I. INTRODUCTION The need for mobile banking has been given considerable attention by many researchers (for example, Karjaluoto, Koivumaki, and Salo, 2002; Mattila, 2003; Suoranta and Mattila, 2004; Laforet and Li ,2005; Riivari, 2005). The topic related to mobile banking has become important for academicians, practitioners and students. Exploring such information will help banks to identify students' perception toward SMS banking which will be crucial for bank's services selection by students. There are two main questions in order to understand SMS banking. Firstly, what is SMS banking in the first place? SMS banking can be defined as banking transaction using mobile phone via SMS application. SMS stands for short message services. Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB), Bank of Commerce (BCB), Maybank to name a few have introduced this application. Introduction for SMS has taken place due to competition among banking institutions as well as non-financial institutions. Secondly, why SMS banking? There are four points, which can be highlighted here. First, the growing population of mobile phone users in Malaysia can become as a good indicator, which will also affect mobile phone application for banking purpose (see appendix 2). Second, a mobile phone can act as a new platform to inform others regarding information dissemination. Third, internet/online server supports it. Fourth, it is flexible. This field of research is very new in Labuan and in Malaysia as well. In fact, the potential of SMS banking is very obvious in Malaysia. As noted earlier, a dramatic increase in the number of mobile phone usage among Malaysian can be become as a yardstick to promote SMS banking as part of banks' service (see appendix 2). According to statistic provided by Suruhanjaya Komunikasi dan Multimedia Malaysia (SKMM), the usage of SMS has drawn a dramatic increment in recent year. It stated that about 3.6 billion of SMS were sent in 2002, whereas in year 2003 the number of SMS increased to 6.1billion. In addition, on ownership of mobile phone, it has displayed an obvious increment. For example in 1998 total individuals with mobile phones were 2.15 million. According to the present study, mobile phone only proliferated for communication with friends, family members and chatting purpose (99 percent for friends and family, but only 0.95 percent for banking). This practice among students showed the lack of understanding on the other benefits that can be extracted from mobile phone services. This situation was also due to security and reliability and also other factors associated with SMS banking. …