The Internet: Increasing the Complexity of the Customer-Technology Relationship

The retail banking industry has known for many years that customer technology uptake is not a simple process. For example, phone banking and ATMs meet many customer needs, but have not replaced bank branches. The Internet adds a further complexity to the customer-technology relationship. In this paper I review the development of the Internet, and examine what success has been achieved in developing it as a commercial transation medium given its non-commercial origins. I then examine one recent form of attack on retail Internet banking customers and consider whether the Internet’s design assists or hinders banking customers’ use of technology-based services in this case.