Potential customers' intention to use Islamic banking products in Cameroon : the mediating effect of attitude

Abstract

Islamic finance is not limited to the world's approximately 1.7 billion Muslims. Several additional countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and Germany, are also interested. They show their willingness to adopt Islamic financial products for the purpose of inclusive finance and satisfaction of financial needs of the Muslim minority population of these countries. However, although the primary goal of Islamic finance financial inclusion, it has been observed that in some Muslim countries as well as non-Muslim countries, the majority of the people are excluded from the traditional system for religious reasons. This study examines potential customers awareness of Islamic banking products in Cameroon and factors influencing their decision. To achieve this, a structured questionnaire was used with 318 respondents, while 300 were usable for analysis with 94% of respondents rate. The research used SEM-PLS to estimate the data. In addition, an interview with 10 participants was conducted to support the quantitative results. The findings suggested that potential customers knowledge of Islamic banking operations is limited. Most of them are not completely mindful of Islamic financing instruments. Moreover, the study found that attitude, religious motivation, awareness, subjective norm, and relative advantage significantly affect their intention towards Islamic banking products, while perceived regulatory and perceived innovation are not significant. Furthermore, attitude has a substantial mediating role on the connection amongst religious motivation, subjective norm, awareness, relative advantage, perceived innovation, and intention to adopt Islamic banking products. Therefore, the findings of this study contribute to the past literature by providing new framework that combines the theories of planned behavior and diffusion of innovation theory and offers managerial implications at the level of Islamic finance operators. Meanwhile, this research provides some policy recommendations that can help to boost the growth of Islamic finance in Cameroon in order to promote financial inclusion.