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Call for Papers
Special Issue of the Service Industries Journal
“Online Retail Financial Services in a Changing World”

Guest Editors:

Des Laffey, Senior Lecturer, University of Kent
Dr Anthony Gandy, Associate Director, ifs School of Finance
Dr Ben Lowe, Senior Lecturer, University of Kent

In the 1990s online banking was seen by many as the future for the industry. The dramatic emergence of the Internet banks, Egg in Europe, and Wingspan in the United States, was seen as the logical consequence of the lower costs of online operations. However, whilst customers in many countries adopted online banking the failure of these Internet only banks illustrated that wider economic considerations and customer needs must also be considered. The existing players had considerable economies of scale and offered their own Internet channels which matched the services of the new entrants along with the services and brand of an established institution. Customers were also attracted to Internet only banks through the use of loss making promotions which were not sustainable in the longer term.

As the Web has become ubiquitous the debate has moved away from Internet only banking versus multi-channel banking to how online retail financial services can complement existing channels. This is particularly important in an environment where information asymmetries are decreasing: search engines and comparison websites are used in product evaluation and selection and customers are increasingly willing to share experiences though social media such as Twitter and Facebook. This in turn poses challenges for traditional operations as, for example, staff in bank branches have to deal with more knowledgeable customers.

The aim of the Special Issue is to develop a set of papers which addresses the challenges faced in such a changing and dynamic environment.

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Customer adoption of online financial services
  • By product type and country
• Information asymmetry and online financial services
• The economics of online financial services
• The future of multi-channel financial services
• Mobile financial services
• The Internet and Customer Empowerment: implications for staff training and development
• Recruiting and retaining customers in a Web 2.0 world
• Service quality of online financial services

Key dates

Abstracts to be submitted 30 September 2011
Decisions on abstracts 30 October 2011
Full papers submitted 31 May 2012
Decisions on full papers 30 September 2012
Final revised papers submitted 31 January 2013

Please submit abstracts and papers to D.J.Laffey@kent.ac.uk clearly identifying your submission in the email subject line, SIJ – Online retail financial services in a changing world

All papers will go through the regular double-blind review process to ensure relevance and quality, and must follow the SIJ Style Guidelines (see http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/fsijauth.asp). This special issue will be published in 2014.

Questions about content and ideas should be directed to the guest editors: Des Laffey (D.J.Laffey@kent.ac.uk), Anthony Gandy (tgandy@ifslearning.ac.uk) or Ben Lowe (B.Lowe@kent.ac.uk).

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