Consumers

buying behavior
changing
patterns

NATIONAL BANK
OF GREECE

NATIONAL BANK OF GREECE

Executive summary

The current research paper describes the consumer buying behavior changing patterns in
case of National Bank of Greece. The National bank of Greece is the leader in the Greek
financial market and the leading financial institution in the whole Balkan region. The
revolution in the Internet leads to the boom of e-commerce and e-banking for the financial
institution. For that reason was conducted secondary research in order to identify the
particular financial institution position in the market with evaluation of NBG online sources
and services. The theoretical background of the report describes the main issues with
implementation of e-banking and general development and impact of e-commerce. The
implementation of e-commerce or for financial institutions the e-banking forced the
companies to implement the most of their services through internet. The description of
traditional and e-customers identified some challenges for the NBG managers like security
or data availability that must be taken by all shareholders of the company in order to
increase awareness to the company. The evaluation of the main official online sources of the
company identified important factors used by customers as motivator factors to visit the
website or other sources. From the different independent sources like blogs or social media
sources was identified the criteria that are used by e-customers in evaluation of National
Bank of Greece official online sources. The last part of the report gives some suggestions
and recommendation to the executive board and other employees under that topics and
issues they have to work in order to improve the e-banking services.

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Contents
Executive summary............................................................................................................1
Introduction........................................................................................................................3
National Bank of Greece and impact of e-commerce.......................................................3
Traditional customers vs. e-customers ............................................................................4
Motivator factors visiting National Bank of Greece online store.......................................6
Criteria Customers Use to Evaluate Their E-shopping Experience.....................................7
Recommendations..............................................................................................................8
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................9
Reference list :.................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The technological revolution dramatically changed the business environment and for
some companies it was crucial factor of survive the change of business model and the
establishment of operations through internet. The online business operations brought a lot of
advantages and disadvantages for the companies. The current research paper describes the
consumer behavior changing patterns and the online shopping or e-commerce. For the
research paper was taken the biggest financial institution of Greece the national Bank of
Greece. Like other financial institutions the company implemented their operations through
internet and successfully present in nowadays the phenomenon e-banking. In order to
understand the advantages and disadvantages of e-banking was conducted secondary
research on consumer behavior and their attitudes toward the company. The main part of
the research would describe the two types of consumers like e-consumers and traditional
consumers and their attitudes and opinions about NBG e-banking. Also, the brief
presentation of e-commerce would be described in order to identify the main issues faced by
financial institutions and in our case the NBG group. The end part of the research is based on
motivators for visiting the NBG website and that factors force customers to use e-banking
and which factors get out the customers.

National Bank of Greece and impact of e-commerce

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National bank of Greece is the oldest bank of Greece with history more than 100 years. The
NBG bank was established in 1841 and in old history and new was the first bank of the
country with more secure reputation. Despite of the Greece, the National bank of Greece has
operations through other regions such as Southeast Europe and Eastern Mediterranean. The
NBG provides a lot of financial services and operations for the businesses and individuals
with adaptation to their needs and consumer behavior patterns. The statistical data illustrate
the reputation of the bank in the country and outside and the latest data show that NBG has
of all financial branches in Greece with market share of 21% in deposits. The amount of
deposits identify the strong position of bank in the country that would be proved with other
numbers like the number of branches in Greece with more than 500 and 1,351 ATM operated
by NBG. The technological progress and the growth of popularity of e-commerce or ebanking forced the company to shift their operations and services through internet by
increasing their distribution channels for the products and services and offering Mobile and
Internet Banking services. According to the latest data of National Bank of Greece (2013),
the international operations of bank involve 1,198 units and more than 30000 employees by
serving the markets with potential of 125 million populations

(http://www.nbg.gr/wps/portal/en/The-Group/The-Bank).
According to Kapoulas (2004), the social media, e-commerce all these aspects are
steady changes the business environment and as a result changing in consumer behavior
has an impact and must be taken into consideration by the companies. The technological
boom and progress gave access to knowledge and information for the consumers and they
are more educated with these innovations and become more aware and rational in their
behavior or in other words purchases. The change in social life and economy carry on some
aspects that forced the growth of e-commerce. The lack of
time, working women and other aspects lead to consumer
buying changing patterns and increase the usage of online
shopping and e-commerce. On other hand, the companies
identified the growth of competition by start-ups companies
or technological companies (dot-com companies).
According to Lee M. et al (2009), the companies faced the issue as electronic word of mouth
that could be seen as positive or negative aspect for them. The free and worldwide access to
the internet increase the place for the open spread of opinions and views about the products
and services the companies provide and offer. Regarding the bank sector, the
implementation of e-banking has some issues that force companies to react to these issues
like the grey market or the elder people that refers to lack of technological knowledge and
skills. According to Sciglimpaglia, D. Ely (2006), the elder people and not only state about

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issues regarding the security and trust to technology and lack of trust due to issues
concerned by thief of personal profile or characteristics and bank account access from other.

Traditional customers vs. e-customers

According to Chiung-Ju Liang (2009), the traditional and e-consumers has different
characteristics or technological skills and as a result the both groups have different attitude
to the online companies and services they offer. In addition, the both groups have different
perception about internet and online services. Martinez-Gomez F. et al.(2005) define that econsumers differ between the current group mostly by level of internet experience and
expertise that effect on their buying responses and attitudes. Also, e-banking and online
financial operations have changed the consumer buying behavior dramatically, but most of
e-consumers remain in their views on privacy issues. Goldsborough, R.(2001) divide the econsumers into three groups of internet users that slight differ between them. The frequent
users use the internet permanently and share any information, chatting and spread and
receive any information and data with a good grace. This type of users is the most opened
group toward online services. The other group of e-consumers ignores the public information
and sharing and they are more sensitive to issues like privacy and security, but on other
hand this group makes frequent purchases online. The last group ignoring the online
services and offers at all and care lots about the privacy and usually could be defined as
non-users.
In addition, it is important to mention about the attitude or characteristics of both of group
concerning past-purchase experience or word-of-mouth. The traditional consumers mostly
trust their friends, family and colleagues regarding the purchase consultation, but some of
traditional consumers are searching through internet about product or service and
information connected with product before purchase in real life. The e-consumers like
traditional follow the advices of closest people, but also they searching and leave
information through internet sources like blogs, websites and social media sources like
Facebook, Twitter and other. The e-consumers prefer to spread their WOM and to have open
discussion about services and products through internet and
believe to other advices. On other hand, the managers of financial
institutions mention about this issues of free access of online
sources and the open spread of opinions that could damage
reputation and brand awareness toward banks. According to Ping
and Gisela (2000, 2001), the most important factors that force
customers to use e-banking is the lack of time, free access 24

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hours and speed of transactions. The customers of National Bank of Greece can use all this
advantages of e-banking and in comparison with traditional customers could win time and
money.

Motivator factors visiting National Bank of Greece online store

The human nature and characteristics of
each human make it different with different
attitudes and opinions about something or
somebody. For the most users the main
motivator factor to visit the webpage or
online source is the design of the source and
usability. The secondary research identified
that customers of National bank of Greece
are satisfied with this factor and was
observed that the official website fulfill the
criteria of satisfactory. The customers describe the website as user-friendly and design is
straight forward to simplify the navigation through online source. The website of National
Bank of Greece is very simplified and each section includes sub-sections in order to make
easier the navigation and usage. The website includes the most important sections for the
financial users such as: investor relations, about bank information, about account
information, offers for businesses and individuals and other. In addition, the new innovation
of online services well-known as i-bank by NBG group defines the interactive and userfriendly capabilities of official online source. The i-bank for the non-users or low technical
skills users implemented a brief course of website and i-bank service description and
navigation. Also, it is important to mention about the usage of electronic device that is used
for security of transaction and the innovative pioneering usage of device for the personal
code and password change every 3 days for security reasons during transaction. The most of
the users of i-bank stated about the advantages like: security technology, flexibility of
service and money/time savings.

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Criteria Customers Use to Evaluate Their E-shopping Experience

Nowadays, the technological progress leads to growth of online shopping and e-shopping
experience. E-consumers more and more feel comfortable with online sources that could
provide specific services at specific right time. According to marketing definitions the buying
experience and experience with website are associated with past-purchase experience and
level of satisfaction. The most of e-customers use follow criteria in order to evaluate their
experience such as: website interface, quality of services and products and perceived quality
of services of particular online source. In terms of interface the e-customers mostly mention
follow factors like accessibility, navigation, design or appearance, security and the
information offered to the public. The young customers are mostly direct their criteria with
speed of loading of data and access to information (Mills, J. E. & Morrison, A. M.,2003). Also,
the perceived quality is the most important factor for evaluating the website due to nature
of being always changing. The frequent usage of online sources makes sense for the most eusers of being bored and tired with the content. For that reason the company needs to be
ready for the periodical changes in quality of service offer and generally change the
interface and navigation of the website and other online sources.

Recommendations
Nothing in the world is excellent for that reason there some suggestions and
recommendations toward National Bank of Greece about their e-banking services and official
online sources. The company needs to take into consideration the consumer buying behavior
changing patterns and the trend of use electronic services. The e-customers of financial

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institutions mostly refer to issues concerned with security for that reason the company has
to develop the most possible to ensure the safety of e-banking services that could lead to
the growth of brand recognition and loyalty of customers. Also, during the secondary
research the customers state about the accessibility of information and other public data to
the public that decrease the customers awareness to e-banking services and products.
According to the Hensmans et al.(2001), the navigation into website plays an important role
for awareness of customers toward online operations and services and also the develop of
user-friendly website can force the company in achieving of competitive advantage against
competitors. The leader of the market as NBG all the time tries to develop the most
innovative navigation with different interactive innovations. On other hand, the company
needs to develop at the official website blog or online book of complaints that could be used
by managers for increasing the quality of services and products offered by company. The
developing of i-bank has increased the awareness to online services, but it could be done
other attempts to increase the usage of online sources like the e-banking service
advertisement (Boyes G. et al. , 2003). Also, the company needs to increase the branches of
i-bank services, for example in Thessaloniki town is only two branches of particular ebanking stores.

Conclusion
To summarize the above statements and information, the national Bank of Greece is one of
the leader of electronic services offers and make all the time attempts to increase
awareness to the electronic services. The switch from traditional to e-customers could be

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achieved by increasing the quality of electronic services and official sources of the company.
The technological progress changed the consumer buying behavior and could be described
the latest time the changing patterns in consumer behavior. The customers are more
educated and with great attention make purchase and all these become possible with
implementation of internet sources that offer a large amount of information for everything
searched. The internet changed the business environment and business model for most of
the companies and their switching to online based business model and operations. The
financial institutions are not many affected by online boom due to very important issues with
security and importance of safety and security for the financial institutions. For that reasons
the company implemented special security device for the online transactions which is forced
to increase the safety and security of transactions. The NBG need to pay attention to the
increasing popularity of e-commerce and e-banking because is the alone way to achieve
competitive advantage and offer qualitative services in a low price.

Reference list :

Anon(2013) Official website. Available from: http://www.nbg.gr/wps/portal/en/The-Group/TheBank. [Accessed on 28 August 2013].

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Goldsborough, R. (2001) Travel the Real World. Link-Up, 28(1), p.23.

Hensmans, M., Van den Bosch, F. A. J., & Volberda, H. W. (2001). Clicks vs bricks in the
emerging online financial services industry. Long Range Planning, 34, 231-47.

Kapoulas, A., Ellis, N., Murphy, W., (2004) The voice of the Customer in e-Banking
Relationships. Journal of Customer Behaviour, 3 (1), p.27-51.

Lee, M., and Youn, S., (2009) Electronic word of mouth (e WOM): How eWOM platforms
influence consumer product judgement. International Journal of Advertising, 28 (3) p.473499.

Martinez-Lopez, F.J. et al (2005) Online shopping, the standard learning hierarchy, and
consumers' internet expertise: An American-Spanish comparison. Internet Research, 15(3),
p. 312 334.

Martinez-Lopez, F.J. et al (2005) Online shopping, the standard learning hierarchy, and
consumers' internet expertise: An American-Spanish comparison. Internet Research, 15(3),
p. 312 334.

Mills, J. E. & Morrison, A. M. (2003) Measuring Customer Satisfaction with Online Travel. NY:
Springer (p. 10 19).

Solomon M.R., Bamossy G., Askegaard S., and Hogg, M.K. (2006) Consumer Behaviour: A
European Perspective. 3rd Edition, London: Prentice Hall Financial Times.

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Zhang, P., and von Dran, G. Expectations and rankings of Web site quality features: Results
of two studies on user perceptions. In Proceedings of the 34th Hawaii International
Conference on Systems Science. Maui, HI: IEEE Computer Society, 2001.

Zhang, P., and von Dran, G. Web sites that satisfy users: An empirical investigation of Web
site interface features. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 51, 14
(December 2000), 12531268. 40.

Appendices
Appendix A. Glassdoor website with NBG evaluation by customers

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Appendix B. Customers and employees opinions and reviews about NBG

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