Plastic Money and Electronic Banking Services Espousal vis-a-viz Financial Identity Theft Fraud Risk Awareness in a Developing Country

Exploitation of plastic money coupled with electronic banking services has come as expediency to financial establishment customers in Zimbabwe. This paper sought to analyze plastic money and electronic banking services espousal vis-a-viz financial identity theft fraud risk awareness in Zimbabwe banking sector via banks’ websites. The theoretical underpinning for this study is Routine Activity Theory. The study used qualitative content analysis research technique for examination of the text content data through the consistent taxonomy process of coding and classifying themes or patterns to submit a painstaking considerate of financial identity theft fraud awareness by the banking sector in Zimbabwe. A sample size of 14 banks (including commercial, merchant and building societies) was used and the banks were arbitrarily chosen on the basis of website accessibility and ease of use of the data. The study findings suggest that there is very little financial identity theft awareness in Zimbabwe by the banking sector through their websites to the general public whilst there is amplified adoption of plastic money and electronic banking adoption. This study proposes a need to amplify the information and inform plastic card and electronic banking customers of the types of financial identity theft fraud. Plastic card and electronic banking is an urgent area to focus on for banking institutions and should inexorably capitalize in it. Financial identity theft information should be easily retrievable and conveyed in a manner that makes reasonableness to the varied customers.