A pilot investigation of e-banking trust perceptions amongst the Yoruba and Igbo of Nigeria

This paper reports a pilot study designed to probe B2C (Business to Consumer) consumer trust perceptions across sub-cultural boundaries. More specifically, two low fidelity B2C (Business to Consumer) web-sites have been designed to "probe" (i.e. reveal intangible trust requirements) as they specifically relate to membership of two sub-cultural groups within Nigeria in the context of E-banking. The results of the study reveal that the two groups (Yoruba and Igbo) differentially de-coded visual cues embedded within seven exemplar E-Banking sites. Further, this decoding reflected local cultural norms. We have consciously avoided any post-hoc mapping of Hofstede's cultural dimensions. Rather, our experimental method relies on a comparison of self-generated personal constructs, elicited from subjects in response to the stimuli materials (home-page "cards") presented to the subjects.