Banking for Boomers – A Field Experiment on Internet Banking Adoption

Last registered on October 21, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Banking for Boomers – A Field Experiment on Internet Banking Adoption
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013985
Initial registration date
July 11, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
July 16, 2024, 3:33 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
October 21, 2024, 12:39 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Katharina Hartinger
Affiliation
JGU Mainz
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
David Streich
PI Affiliation
Catholic University Eichstaett-Ingolstadt
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PI Name
Erik Sarrazin
PI Affiliation
JGU Mainz
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-07-12
End date
2025-08-01
Keywords
Behavior, Education, Finance & Microfinance
Additional Keywords
Technology Adoption
JEL code(s)
O33, G21, I21, J24, D12, D91, C93
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Internet banking adoption is low among “Boomers” in Germany and other developed countries although they hold considerable wealth. We develop education concepts to foster internet banking adoption and evaluate them in a field experiment with elderly clients of a large German savings bank. Specifically, we use traditional knowledge-based approaches as well as approaches that focus on social connection and teach non-technical adoption skills – since fear of failure and technophobia are key obstacles to internet banking adoption. We assess the effectiveness of these approaches based on individual log-in and transaction data and use two surveys (pre-survey and post-survey) to identify key mechanisms.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hartinger, Katharina, Erik Sarrazin and David Streich. 2024. "Banking for Boomers – A Field Experiment on Internet Banking Adoption." AEA RCT Registry. October 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13985-2.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We conduct a field experiment with elderly customers of a large German savings bank to study the effect of different education approaches for technology adoption and lifelong learning on internet banking (IB) adoption at the extensive and at the intensive margin. We use traditional information-based approaches and approaches emphasizing non-technical adoption skills in a social learning context. Our target group consists of clients aged 50-85 who have not used internet banking in the recent past.
In total, there are four experimental groups: i) silent control group that we do not contact, ii) baseline treatment group (traditional, technical information-based approach), iii) non-technical treatment group I (coaching at home), iv) non-technical treatment group II (coaching in person). Note that participants never log into their own private internet banking as part of the training for data protection reasons. Instead, we use a demo tool.
Intervention Start Date
2024-09-09
Intervention End Date
2024-12-02

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Internet banking adoption (extensive and intensive margins); treatment take-up, attrition, effects of non-random assignment
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Extensive margin: Adoption level 1: Activation (YES/NO) of IB (browser and / or app), adoption level 2 (conditional on activation): login following intervention; any online transactions (YES/NO, conditional on some transaction conducted)
Intensive margin: Number and share of online transactions (conditional on some transaction conducted), days since last login
Treatment take-up: Binary indicators capturing interest in and completion of treatment.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
IB beliefs and perception, IB skills, technophobia, non-technical adoption skills (i.e., emotional regulation, coping strategies, ...)
Heterogeneity analysis by gender (see large literature on financial dependence), age (exploratively, to shed more light on the understudied group of elderly in the context of lifelong learning), training completion, and baseline skills.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
See PAP for details

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Respondents to a call for participation sent out by the bank in July 2024 are randomly assigned (subject to some restrictions outlined in the experimental details below) to one of three treatment conditions (baseline, non-technical treatment I and non-technical treatment II) with a limited number of slots available in the non-technical treatments due to budget constraints.
Those in the baseline treatment group receive training material containing all technical information about the key functions of internet banking. Those in the non-technical groups receive additional material that addresses non-technical skills in addition and that is designed to be worked with at home (non-technical group I) or in an in-person course with peers (non-technical group II). All material is made available through a designated online platform, which also provides video summaries of the material.
We, thus, use a between-subject design. Survey capacities permitting, we plan to include some survey measures before and after the treatment to use within-subject variation in the analysis of mechanisms.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Stratified randomization.
Randomization done in office by a computer.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
We invite 23,500 clients who have not recently used internet banking (10,000 by letter, 13,500 by email) to participate. We expect a response rate of 2 percent.
Update October 2024 (before final intervention data is available): We invited 25,982 customers who had not recently used IB (12,482 by letter, 13,500 by letter) to participate.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Update October 2024 (before final intervention data is available): We invited 25,982 customers who had not recently used IB (12,482 by letter, 13,500 by letter) to participate.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Silent control: 1,725 (725 from the group of clients we could have contacted via email)
Main sample:
Baseline treatment: 99 individuals
Non-technical treatment I: 34 individuals
Non-technical treatment II: 200 individuals
Full sample:
Baseline treatment: 252 individuals
Non-technical treatment I: 49 individuals
Non-technical treatment II: 250 individuals
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
We will use the 10% threshold for statistical significance due to sample size.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Joint Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Goethe University Frankfurt and the Gutenberg School of Management & Economics of the Faculty of Law, Management and Economics of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
IRB Approval Date
2024-06-05
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

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