Despite social media having a remarkable success in many parts of the world in different contexts such as promoting brands to changing state leaders, the adoption by the banking sector to provide financial services remains relatively low across many parts of the world. Many banking customers are still reluctant to consume financial services via social media. In fact, how banks should adopt social media still remains unanswered, possibly due to the fluidity of social media compared to the rigidness of the banking sector. The aim of this paper is to devise a framework to better understand the determinants of social media adoption among the banking sector based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Paper available at: https://www.academia.edu/15069575/Social_Media_Adoption_among_the_Banking_Sector_in_Sri_Lanka

1. Social Media Adoption among the Banking Sector in Sri Lanka
Parakum Pathirana
MSc, FBCS, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, CISSP, ISO 27001 LA, MCP, CHFI, QCS, ITIL, CCSK
Head of IT Security & Compliance – Lanka ORIX IT Services
President – ISACA Sri Lanka Chapter

2. Disclaimer
• I’m employed in the #infosec industry,
however not authorized to speak on behalf of
my employer/ clients
• Everything I say can be blamed on the voices
in your head

3. My credentials
• 9+ years in #Infosec field
• Tutor, consultant/ advisor, auditor, head of
InfoSec
• Sectors: financial, leisure, manufacturing,
advertising, gov, insurance, etc.
• Crazy about #cycling, #infosec, #socialmedia
• Still learning and not an expert at anything
• lk.linkedin.com/pub/parakum-
pathirana/2/a52/2a2/

4. Social Media Revolution
• Facebook exceeded 1.11 billion monthly active users, and
daily active users passed 665 million (PR Newswire, 2013).
• Only 14% of consumers trust advertisements and they are
more likely to trust peer recommendations (Qualman,
2012).
• Commonwealth Bank launched its smartphone banking app
Kaching as a social app that can be accessed from within
Facebook (2012).
• Navy Federal Credit Union in United States generated
nearly $96 million in new loan businesses and $90 million
in Credit Default Swaps (CDS) entirely on Facebook in 6
weeks (The Financial Brand, 2013).
• The ATOM Bank (2015)

5. Social Media Revolution
• Incident 1: United Airlines broke Dave Carroll’s
guitar in 2008 : 15+ million views
• Twitter: JP Morgan Fiasco
• YouTube: 300 hours video uploaded every
minute (2015)

6. J.P. Morgan Twitter Fiasco

7. 7
Social Networks Users worldwide
Source: eMarketer, 2013

8. 8
Social Network User Penetration worldwide
Source: eMarketer, 2013

9. 9
Sri Lankan Context
Attribute Sri Lanka Indonesia Malaysia
Total population 21,675,648 251,160,124 29,628,392
Internet users 3,927,948 72,700,000 19,200,408
Internet penetration 18% 29% 65%
Active Facebook accounts 2,000,000 62,000,000 15,600,000
Facebook penetration 9% 25% 53%
Active mobile subscriptions 20,324,070 281,963,665 41,324,700
Mobile subscription penetration 94% 112% 139%
Percentage of mobile subscriptions that are 3G connections 13% 22% 43%
Number of active mobile broadband subscriptions 953,000 80,100,000 4,000,000
Mobile broadband subscriptions as a percentage of the total
population
4.4% 32% 14%
Active social media users accessing social media on a mobile device 1,400,000 52,000,000 13,000,000
Penetration of mobile social as a percentage of the total population 6.6% 21% 44%
Source: We are Social, 2014

10. Sri Lankan Context (Cont’d)
• 6 billion LKR mobile money transactions during 2013 using a single mobile
operator (Daily FT, 2014).
• IT Literacy rate increase from 2010 to 2011 => 20.3% to 35% (Ministry of Finance
and Planning, 2013).
• Only 27 finance companies (out of Brand Finance Top 100) had a Facebook page
icon on their homepage, 14 Twitter and 10 YouTube (Thajudeen, 2012).
• School children committing suicide involving Facebook related incidents (Imtiaz,
2014).
• More mobile devices than tooth brushes in Sri Lanka (Fernando, 2013)
• Pivotal role played by Social Media in Presidential Elections in Jan 2015
(Gunawardene, 2015)
• Over 20% of population lack financial inclusion
• The domestic savings rate is still at 20% (Sunday Observer, 2015) leaving a wide
domestic savings gap in the path to reaching and maintaining an 8% economic
growth
• ADB has drawn attention of the policy makers to focus on innovation and the
needs for a knowledge economy at the threshold of gaining upper middle income
country status 10

11. Financial Sector and Social Media
• Findings from the Fairbanking foundation
study (Leadbeater & Elliot 2013)
– reputation of bankers are low
– questionable business models, culture and values
practiced by banks leaving the customer interests
aside
– Need to go back to basics
– Need to be more intimate and transparent
12

12. Rise of Social Media and demise of financial sector
popularity
13

13. Financial Sector and Social Media
• Match made in heaven? Or ?
– Similarities
– “Many talk about it? Few are doing it and those that are, aren’t doing
it that well, with one or two exceptions”
• Realities
– Marketing of financial products are highly regulated
– Financial crisis & potential customer backlash
– Lost of customer trust
• “In 1983, 90% of public agreed that banks in Britain are well
run, compared to 19% in 2003” – (British Social Attitudes
Survey, 2004)
14

14. Social Media potential in the finance sector
• 25% of respondents felt that social media offers a new way to
communicate to tomorrow's consumers
• 57% of financial services professionals are interested in social
media
• 41% interested in discussions of their brand on social media
• 30% see social media as the future of communications
• 81% feels that Twitter is more important than Facebook or
LinkedIn
15(Cicero Consulting, 2012)

15. Untapped potential
• Nearly 60% think that their industry has so far not
been effective in utilizing social media
• 38% are concerned that they are missing out due to
lack of time and resources dedicated to social media
• Less than half of surveyed firms are making effective
use of social media, and a tenth are not even
considering how they could do so
16(Cicero Consulting, 2012)

16. Objectives of the study
• To examine and find out the casual factors
affecting the consumers adoption of social
media for banking services
• To analyze the impact of attitude towards
using social media and social media adoption
among the baking sector in Sri Lanka
• To analyze if knowledge and age performs a
mediating role among behavioral intention to
use social media and social media adoption

17. Significance of the Study
• Both the banking sector and social media represents
mutually supportive forces which could be harnessed
for mutually supportive outcomes
• Public trust on the banking sector continues to decline
(Leadbeater & Elliot 2013)
• Growth of the financial sector will play a pivotal role in
the development process of Sri Lanka
• Banking sector profits in Sri Lanka have declined in
2013 to 74.6 billion rupees after tax, approximately
9.6% drop in comparison to 2012 value of 82.7 billion
rupees (SundayTimes, 2013)

18. Literature Review
• Economic Theory
• Modernization Theory
• Diffusion of Innovation Model
• Technology Acceptance Model

19. Conceptual Framework

20. Q & A