Positive and Negative Effects of Using Electronic Banking on Customers and Small Entrepreneurs: An Exploratory Study in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia

Currently, the exchange of digital knowledge is not confined to a place or time. Knowledge is being shared among peoples all over the world regardless of the geographical and political boundaries. Technology, from the time of its existence, has contributed in changing many people’s rooted concepts that they have been accustomed to in their lives. While technology has positively contributed in shortening the time and distances among nations, it has also created some negative consequences such as the difficulty of protecting the individual’s privacy. In the era of widespread technology, new types of money thefts have emerged. These thefts do not include breaking into houses and banks but rather, Internet piracy. This is one of the modern types of thefts, which is represented in many forms such as identity theft, transferring money from one bank account into another, and the thefts of sensitive and confidential information. Therefore, information technology has an important role to play in our life, and it became one of our priorities. This research study focuses on assessing the risks related to the theft of the information of the clients of the commercial banks and even considering the level of security and theft prevention of such information as one of the key factors of quality that most banks show as one of their competitive advantages which they are trying to maintain.