Abstract
Traditional banking methods have evolved and now include various services as a method of differentiation, reducing operating costs, and providing additional benefits to the customer. This plays out on the backdrop of increased competition, cost inefficiencies, increased consumer knowledge, the availability of information, and the immergence of market disruptors. Banks are finding themselves having to re-invent and provide innovative solutions to remain competitive. One such way is the use of value added services (VAS) to complement a banking product. This research aims to explore whether using value added services contributed to changes in transactional banking behaviour. This experiment study took place in one of the largest banks in South Africa over a period of four months. Customers of two banking products in the youth customer segment were selected as subjects for the experiment. The control group received one treatment at the beginning of the four-month period, and the experimental group received a further three treatments at different times of each month. The intervention included introduction, modification, certain conditions and repeated personalised communication of the VAS. At the end of the period, secondary data was extracted from the bank’s enterprise data warehouse and the vouchering system with transactions and voucher redemptions information. Two data sets (1) VAS usage and (2) bank transactions were analysed. The study was cross-sectional and movements (i.e. increase or decrease in transactional activity, and increase or decrease in VAS redemptions) were observed before and after the intervention. The results showed that the intervention had a positive effect on transactional banking behaviour. Additional causative factors were identified that increased the usage of value-added services and increased transactional banking behaviour.
M.Com. (Business Management)