Journal of Business & Financial Affairs

Customers’ Switching Intention in Oman’s Banking Industry

Abstract

Al Ghammari KA and Ahmed EM*

Throughout early 2012, Oman allowed the Islamic banking for the first time as a response to a public demand during what was called "Arab spring". Consequently, this study presumed that, such new entry will create impact on the customers’ switching intention as customers may intent to switch to the new Islamic banks. The main objective of this study is to identify the factors that influencing customers' intention to switch banks in general and the impact created by the need to Islamic banking in Oman in particular. Nonetheless, the initial literature reviews has not cited the need for Islamic banking products among the common switching factors; however, face to face interviews with bank customers revealed that, the need for Islamic banking product was one of the influencing factors. Therefore, it has been added to this study as variable to test the expected influence and the impact on switching intention without going deeply into the concept of Islamic banking. The method used is qualitative approach in the form of interview with focus groups, in this respect, face-to-face interviews of selected customers from 6 different banks in Oman were conducted to show the impact on customers’ intention to switch conventional banks to Islamic banks. The interview outcome assisted to get a richness and depth of data and information on the impact created by the introduction of Islamic banking in Oman on customers’ intention to switch conventional banks to Islamic banks. The interview outcomes suggest that more than half of respondents are inclined to transfer to Islamic banking despite the fact that 64% are satisfied with their current banks. Hence, it can be concluded that faith has an influence on customer decisions and that is considered to be the impact created by the Islamic banking on Oman’s banking industry.