The financial services sector is investing considerable sums of money into mobile
banking services, but the uptake by customers has been low. The cost to benefit ratio
of mobile banking is highly unsatisfactory when the costs of developing and
managing the channel are considered. Many of the advantages of Internet banking
are shared by mobile banking e.g. control and time saving. Mobile banking also
offers higher convenience with the ability to carry out banking whenever and
wherever you are. It is hoped that mobile banking can be as successful as Internet
banking. A major factor in the low adoption of mobile banking is usability, and there
is a need for research on the issues surrounding mobile banking as so far little has
been conducted. This thesis seeks to investigate the usability issues surrounding
Short Message Service (SMS) banking. It identifies three general functions of SMS
in electronic banking: transactions, communication/CRM and security. Three
empirical usability evaluations are presented that explored customers’ perceptions
and attitudes of using these functions of SMS banking. The research presented here
provides empirical evidence for the thesis that usability is a significant factor in the
low customer adoption of SMS banking. It also shows that related to usability issues
are customer concerns over the security of SMS as a banking channel. Older users
will find SMS banking less usable than younger users and are more ambivalent
regarding SMS in general. It recommends the most usable message input format to
use in SMS banking and contributes insights on how best to realise the practical
application of SMS banking and services. The findings from these studies will help
improve usability in mobile banking services