Factors affecting bank staff attitude towards E‐banking adoption in Libya

E‐banking technology is gaining widespread adoption in the banking industry across developed countries. The case, however, is different in less developed nations, such as Libya. Libyan banks, for example, despite recently acknowledging the benefits of e‐banking technology in improving banking services, have not adopted and integrated this innovation within its banking delivery strategy. Instead, they continue to deliver most of their banking services and products using traditional banking delivery channels, notably paper‐based branch networks. This is largely due to bank staff resistance to new banking technologies. A review of literature on ICT adoption shows that there has only been a few studies about ICT adoption in developing countries compared to the developed world, and even less so about the Middle East, including Libya. Thus, this paper aims to bridge this gap by investigating the key factors affecting bank staff's attitude towards e‐banking technology, a step necessary to understand what makes effective the introduction of e‐banking projects in Libya. This paper draws on existing literature on technological developments in the banking industry and the findings from semi–structured interviews with key bank staff of a leading commercial bank in Libya. A number of factors of e‐banking technology adoption are identified that affect adoption. Finally, we identified lessons that can guide future e‐banking implementation projects in Libyan banks. Lessons can be taken for other Arab countries.