Examining young users’ security perceptions of mobile banking : A qualitative study on users’ insights about mobile banking.

Abstract: The advancement of mobile technology and banking services enabled users to use the mobile banking for a variety of tasks with their smartphones, bringing increased flexibility and value-added services to the customers. However, users still have still concerns regarding the security of mobile banking services. The lack of knowledge of the user about different security threats and mechanisms to improve their security represent a major opportunity for hackers and cyberattacks. Despite the fact that the younger students are more knowledgeable about technologies yet awareness is still a concern. Perceived security in the context of young users has not been examined before, although it is considered important in building customer trust. Therefore, this thesis aims to form a good understanding of this topic. On analyzing prior research, the subjects of trust and perceived security in mobile banking is approached by the literature review and an exploratory study that was conducted through qualitative semi-structured interviews. The information collected was carefully analyzed with proper tools. After analyzing the information an analysis of the literature findings and study finds was presented. This thesis examined and revealed that perceived security in mobile banking is important for young users. However, it was noticed that users would not leave the service due to their reliance on the bank assurances to cover their security losses, which means that most of the mobile banking young users trust their bank and technology given the security threats. In addition, this study revealed that the majority of users are unaware of security threats surrounding the mobile banking environment. It was found also that the most important mechanism for the user is authentication mechanisms. This thesis provides a general understanding of the security in mobile banking. It highlights that perceived security is a complex concept and is affected by various factors such as device, information quality, user experience and type of network connections. These factors should be carefully considered by users when using the technology. In conclusion, this thesis also implies banks to communicate effectively security information to users in order to avoid mobile banking users’ errors.