Research Trends in the Diffusion of Internet Banking in Developing Countries

The internet banking phenomenon has transformed the way banks across the world carry out banking transactions and has brought about new strategic directions for investment in banking information and communication technologies. This paper provides the research trends in the diffusion and adoption of internet banking in developing countries through a content analysis of existing literature that focused on developing countries. The main purpose of the study is to present the current level of research on internet banking in developing countries and expose any gaps that need scholarly attention. Through the analysis of 188 journal articles that focused on internet banking diffusion, adoption and implementation in developing countries, we found that research on internet banking has gained rapid scholarly attention in developing countries since the year 2000 when internet banking became a popular phenomenon and peaking in 2012. However the results also show a dominance of research studies based in Asian countries with many African, Caribbean and South American countries still lagging behind in internet banking research. The finding provides insightful directions and research gaps on internet banking and will be useful to academics and practitioners who are working or plan to work in the area of internet banking in developing countries.