Factors influencing customer preference of cardless technology over the card for cash withdrawals: an extended technology acceptance model

Journal of Financial Services Marketing https://doi.org/10.1057/s41264-022-00139-y ORIGINAL ARTICLE Factors influencing customer preference of cardless technology over the card for cash withdrawals: an extended technology acceptance model Bindu K. Nambiar1 · Kartikeya Bolar2 Received: 5 January 2021 / Revised: 30 June 2021 / Accepted: 10 January 2022 © The Author(s) 2022 Abstract It can seem paradoxical that someone who evades the use of a debit card still wants access to cash and is willing to use their mobile device at an ATM. The cardless cash technology delivers a solution that is an improvement over the traditional form of cash delivery. This study explores the influential factors that affect the preference of cardless cash over cards. A crosssectional survey was utilised to collect both data through a self-administered questionnaire. A total of 521 bank customers from one of the largest banks in India participated in the study employing a convenience sampling technique. The responses were analysed using a predictive analytics approach with various statistical and data mining techniques. Customers preferred cardless cash because of its usefulness over the Card rather than perceived ease of use, customer trust, or perceived security. This paper contributes to the banking world's ways of pre-stage access to cash, reducing customer contact at ATMs. It highlights the main factors that influence customer's preference towards using cardless cash technology at ATMs, helping banks spread the newest technology used to provide a financial instrument that has been here for centuries—cash. Keywords Cardless cash · Automated teller machine (ATM) · TAM · Banking · Customer preference Introduction Banking services are undergoing significant shifts due to a wide variety of factors. How the banks adapt to these changes is the key to staying relevant and stimulating growth. The imperative here is to facilitate the customers' desire for financial independence through innovative and imaginative products and processes, appealing to the customers' dreams and aspirations. Banks have witnessed headwinds accentuated by the ever-evolving market dynamics. However, they were also hugely supported by tailwinds like digitisation and digitalisation. These continuous upheavals, amplified by the domestic and global scenarios, have pushed the banks to provide a robust platform and multiple channels to deliver the best customer experience. * Kartikeya Bolar 1 State Bank Institute of Consumer Banking, Hyderabad, India 2 T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India Customer experience and satisfaction have a considerable impact on the bank's financial performance (Mbama & Ezepue, 2018), and bracing innovations in enhancing customer experience will genuinely shape the future of banking. The forces that reshape the banking landscape begin with the rapid evolution of customer demands (Kumar & Balaramachandran, 2018) that elevate the benchmark for exceptional customer experience. Secondly, emerging fintech and digital platforms drive the disruptive innovative solutions compelling the traditional banks into the most incredible opportunity (Gomber et al., 2018). Banking has been identified as one of the business sectors that has been most impacted by the internet's spread (Flavian et al., 2006). However, it is also a window of unfulfilled opportunities to define a point of difference concerning their fintech competitors, leverage their channel, and deliver and meet the unique customer needs in an emotionally significant way (Zachariadis & Ozcan, 2017). Additionally, the entry of multiple players is also questioning the hegemony of brick-andmortar banks unravelling new paths and pushing banks to align their approach with the current evolution of customer expectations. Vol.:(0123456789) B. K. Nambiar, K. Bolar Along with the banking system, the customer domain has also undergone a sea change. Today's customers are very different from their counterparts of the past decades. They have become highly tech-savvy and more demanding. They have an enhanced understanding of the various advances in technology. They tend to adopt those technologies early on, some of which are disruptive to the hitherto seen banking landscape. They probe the full spectrum of banking channels to see what suits them better. They visit bank branches less frequently due to the rapid rise of information and communication technologies, wireless technologies, and mobile devices and do most of their banking online (Singh & Srivastava, 2020). With such a high level of technology adoption, banks need to account for the fact that customers have a high degree of anxiety (Shen et al., 2010). Traditionally, banking is positioned to instil trust (Yousefi & Nasiripour, 2015). However, considering customers' growing needs through the banker's lens of service and experience, alleviating customer anxieties may be a significant vulnerability for technologybased high anxiety settings like banks (Shell & Buell, 2019). The present-era customers may have a substantial amount of discretionary income and are probably in their wealth creation phase in their lives. Hence, it offers an excellent opportunity for banks to capitalise and build profitable longterm relationships. Nevertheless, banking relationships are involved in transactions-based activities more (Arnoud et al. 2011). Financial providers need to concentrate on spinning up and removing the friction points in the buyer's journey (KPMG, 2018). Banks need to provide a high degree of convenience and access to financial products (Yiu et al. 2007). Thus, the critical priorities for banks need to be building relationships and removing friction points in the customer journey. Innovations are happening across the globe to address these priorities. One such innovation is the application of cardless cash technology to withdraw money from ATMs without card use. One reason that prompted cardless cash technology is the rising number of ATM frauds (Agidi, 2018; Ali et al., 2021). Empays, India's authorised payment system, teamed with Mastercard to launch 40,000 ATMs that accept this payment scheme (Mastercard press release, 2020). It employs SMS technology to allow cash withdrawals from participating ATMs without the need for a card. State Bank piloted the concept in India with YONO Cash, and almost all their ATMs are configured for cardless withdrawals. According to TRAI's most recent survey, India has 1.16 billion wireless or mobile telecom users, out of a population of 1.3–1.4 billion people. Since all Debit/Credit/ATM cardholders will be having a mobile number tagged to the Card, this makes the potential for a cardless payment system unbelievably vast. Cardless ATM is a technological innovation that allows customers to make cash transactions from their accounts using a simple mobile application rather than a physical card at the ATMs. When a customer wants to w (...truncated)