A model of trust in online relationship banking

The role of trust encompasses the exchanges and interactions of a retail bank with its customers on various dimensions of online banking. Specifically lays stress on the bank‐to‐customer exchanges taking place through the technological interface. Hypothesizes shared value, communication and opportunistic behaviour as antecedents to trust. Trust and commitment also have a causal relationship. Proposes and empirically tests five hypotheses with a sample of 510 Internet users of various profiles in India. Develops a structural equation model (Lisrel) and establishes all hypotheses. Observes that shared value is most critical to developing trust as well as relationship commitment. Communication has a moderate influence on trust, while opportunistic behaviour has significant negative effect. Also finds higher perceived trust to enhance significantly customers’ commitment in online banking transaction. An important contribution concerns how trust is developed and sustained over different levels of customer relationship in online banking. The future commitment of the customers to online banking depends on perceived trust.