How do our emotions affect our willingness to embrace new digital banking services?
Take a moment to reflect on your experiences and feelings regarding digital banking services and digital currencies. Whether we are aware of it or not, our approach and willingness to use new technology are influenced by our experiences and the emotions they evoke in us.
The success of new technology largely depends on how we as consumers perceive and experience the digital banking services that is provided, as well as how we are influenced by the industry's willingness to adapt.
By constantly keeping an eye on what customers desire, the financial sector can effectively meet the needs that are being demanded.
Recent years' research has made significant progress in understanding the underlying factors that affect customers' willingness to adopt digital banking services.
It largely revolves around how customers perceive the services and the expected outcomes the services are believed to deliver.
The more the customer perceives convenience and a feeling that the services that is expected can be deliver, the greater confidence the customer will have in the services, which in turn will affect the level of utilization. If, on the other hand, the customer perceives or believes that there are risks associated with using the digital services, it may delay or prevent their use.
Masoome Abikari, a doctoral student at CER, focuses her research on how emotions affect consumers' experience of e-services in the financial sector.
It is also not uncommon for us to have conflicting feelings about new technology. The services trigger both positive and negative emotions. In research, a framework is often discussed that encompasses four categories of emotions. The framework describes the emotions that can be triggered in individuals when they use new technical solutions. The emotions are based on whether the individual perceives new technology as an opportunity or as a threat, as well as the individual's sense of control over the expected outcome that the use of the new technical solution entails.
The framework includes positive performance emotions (e.g., happiness, satisfaction, pleasure, relief, and enjoyment), positive challenging emotions (e.g., excitement, hope, anticipation, excitement, and playfulness), negative challenging emotions (e.g., anger, dissatisfaction, disappointment, irritation, frustration, and disgust), and negative performance emotions (e.g., anxiety, fear, and worry).
For individuals who believe that digital services facilitate their financial daily life, the experience of the service is predominantly positive. Individuals who instead perceive that digital services complicate their daily life are more deterred from utilizing the services.
In both cases, individual variations may occur depending on the extent to which individuals perceive control over the expected outcome that the services are believed to deliver.
Emotions, in turn, affect our cognitive abilities such as performance and risk-taking. If an individual experiences strongly negative emotions regarding the use of new technology, it will likely affect the individual's ability and desire to test and explore the technology.
Therefore, the financial sector needs to avoid launching digital banking services that trigger customers' negative emotions.
Providing secure and technologically advanced platforms would contribute to fewer negative emotions towards new digital solutions.
By reducing barriers, increasing the sense of control, and eliminating experiences of risk-taking, more customers may see the benefits of new digital banking services and experience that they facilitate their financial daily life.
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