Research Aims and Hypotheses

1. Research Aims and Hypotheses Objectives: Verify the reliability of services Investigate subject’s awareness and use about e-banking Investigate subjects e-banking attitudes Hypotheses: Verify the existence of a significant difference in e-banking behaviour between young and older adults. Verify the correlation between Likert scale and differential semantic.

2. Subjects • The group is composed of 300 subjects, (104 male and 96 female), mean 37 years in age with a range of 19-74. • The group was interviewed in centre and south Italy, with 35.5% residing in Lazio and nearly 20% residing in Sicily. • Referred to education area, 9 subjects had only a middle school education, 89 a high school education, and 102 had graduated from university.

3. Instruments The questionnaire is composed of four sections: • Knowledge and use of e-banking services • Likert Scale attitudes • Differential Semantic attitudes • Social demographics

4. Results: reliability • Likert Scale e-banking attitudes : α=.75 (18 items). • Differential Semantic scale α=.91 (12 items). • The scales are reliables.

5. Results: Knowledge Subjects claim that they know “no at all” the following services: • title trading (46%) • foreign wire transfers(46%) • Form F 24(40.5%) Subjects claim that they know “a lot” the following services: • bill pay (53%) • mobile recharge (50%) • online purchases(48%)

6. Results: use Subjects declaim that they have used “never” the following services: • title trading (51%) • foreign wire transfers(50%) • form F 24 Subjects claim to use “often” or “always” the following services: • bill pay (42.5%) • bank statement (38%) • online purchases (36.6%)

7. Results: Attitudes Likert scale about the attitudes presents a mean of 4.5, therefore it can be said that subjects show positive attitude referred to online banking services. Differential Semantic Scale shows the same trend, specifying that services are perceived as advantageous, positive, and useful.

8. Results: ANOVA A ANOVA was conducted to verify the possible differences between age and attitude referred to online bank services; the subjects were divided into three groups: from 18 to 34, from 35 - 49, and from 50 to 75. The results show that there is a significant difference between groups (F(2, 197)< 5,11). In particular, the post hoc shows that the difference exists between the “younger” (M=4,65) and the “older” (M=4,22).

9. Results: correlations Finally we have calculated the correlation between Likert Scale and Differential Semantic Scale; the score of .51 (with a significant level of 0,01) indicates that the two scales considered present a “positive correlation”.

10. Conclusions • The Attitudes Scales (Likert and Differential Semantic) proved to be reliable. • Generally subjects know and use primarily bill pay, bank statement and online purchasing services, while the lesser known and used services are F 24 forms and title trading. • Subjects have a positive attitude about online banking services. • The younger group presents a significantly more positive attitude compared to the older.

11. Strenght and Weakness • Strenght: • Our results sustain the data of other recent researches conducted by respected institutions (Banca d’Italia) • The research has allowed to investigate a thematic very important but a little explored. • Weakness: • Sample: small number of subjects; the interviews had realized especially in the south and centre Italy (not representative). • Knowledge and use of the banking services online measured on ordinal scale.