Digital Transformation within the South African banking industry and how it influences customer engagement.

Abstract

Globally organisations have experienced market pressures that require them to adapt to change and adopt digital transformation initiatives. This research study explored how digital transformation within the South African banking industry influenced consumer engagement, asking questions relating to how the adoption of new technologies would aid in maintaining the integrity of the human interaction part of the service offering. The objective was to understand how South African banking customers experienced the advent of digital transformation as it related to how customers interacted both digitally and traditionally with banks. If the introduction of new ways of banking (Artificial Intelligence, cloud computing, automation, chat bots, application programming interfaces, digital identity, and biometrics) took into consideration the human element of customers engaging with banking brands. A qualitative study approach was deemed appropriate for the study which included banking customers who had a good understanding of digital transformation and the different technologies set in place for their banking convenience. The use of the Diffusion of Innovation Theory as well as the The Technology Acceptance Model showed that new ideas are great however, there must be a marriage of human centricity and technology when adopting digital transformation for banking services.