Factors that Affect Banks Acceptance of Electronic Cheque Clearing System: Evidence from Ghana

Although cash is the major form of payment system used in most developing countries, with the current trend in value of cheques processed through ECCS, it is a matter of time for cheques to become the dominant payment system. With the upward trend in the adoption and usage of ECCS in many countries, it is important to study the nature of the technology and understand factors that influence banks to accept the system. Previous research in e-banking adoption and acceptance has directed attention towards e-banking channels other than ECCS and level of analysis used is usually focused on the individual rather than the organisation. This study addresses these research gaps by exploring banks' acceptance factors among Ghanaian Banks. Using Technology Acceptance Model which is expanded with System Quality, Information Quality and Trust, the researchers undertook the study from the perspective of positivism, adopting a quantitative methodology to achieve the objectives. The research examined 25 commercial banks and 5 savings and loans companies which have different ways of adopting the technology. A survey instrument was used to gather data and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using Partial Least Squares (PLS) as the statistical model to analyse the data gathered. The findings supported all the hypothesis presented and showed that Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use are the major factors influencing banks' acceptance of the technology. Trust, IQ and SQ also affect banks' acceptance of ECCS positively but indirectly through PEOU and PU. The level of significance of PEOU was marginally lower compared to the level of significance for PU. The study therefore concurred with previous studies that in contexts where effective task execution substantially depends on the system such as the case with ECCS, beliefs about the system usefulness are more dominant in shaping acceptance than belief about ease of use.