ELECTRONIC COMMERCE WITHIN THE CHINESE BANKING INDUSTRY

Electronic Commerce (EC) enables business transactions to be conducted electronically, offering many benefits to organisations. While EC has been widely adopted across industry sectors in developed countries, its adoption in developing countries has not been widespread. At the moment, there are relatively fewer studies of EC adoption in developing countries compared to those in developed countries and hence little is known why and how to accelerate the EC adoption in developing countries. This paper explores the adoption of EC within the banking industry of China, as an example of a developing country. The findings of this study are useful to better understand the drivers of EC adoption, the potential of EC and the issues faced by the Chinese banking industry. Other developing countries may also benefit from the findings of this study by establishing their awareness of the EC potential as well as possible barriers that they need to confront in the adoption of EC.