Innovation in the Service Sector: Exploring the Adoption of Internet Banking Services in Turkey

The Internet has become the latest technology to be utilised by the banks to attract new customers and develop new markets. Internet banking offers great opportunities for banks to increase their transactions, extend their customer bases and to decrease their operational costs. It also provides some benefits to consumers such as convenience (i.e. time saving), personalization, freedom (i.e. accessibility) and cost advantages. Nonetheless, branch banking still continues to be the dominant channel compared to its technological counterparts. This is true also for consumers in more developed countries. This paper presents the preliminary findings of a study of the development of Internet banking services in Turkey. A qualitative approach formed by a number of interviews with some of the high-ranking bank managers was applied to explore the role of the market research in the development of Internet banking services. The key findings of the study are the management implications of the adoption of Internet banking and the role of new product development in the creation of Internet banking services in Turkey. The most noteworthy finding of the study was that the banks in this study are developing and introducing their services with very limited scientific market research