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Top1. Introduction
While the use of retail (or consumer) banking has become an essential activity in everyday life, its risks are also growing worldwide – especially when it comes to Internet retail banking. Kesharwani and Bisht (2012) observed that before making a buying decision about a service (e.g., Internet retail banking), the uncertainty related to information searches (e.g., browsing banking website) are most often reflected through the consumer’s perception of risk. A consumer might avoid or discontinue the use of a service based on his perception of higher risk should he explored any dissimilarity between the actual retail goal and the retail experience. Several researchers (e.g., Vivo et al., 1998; Farah et al., 2018; Shahjehan et al., 2020) believe that Internet services contain various risks such as malware, spoofing, password-sniffing, spyware, phishing activities, etc. These risks have increased tremendously in the last few years, mainly in the form of cases like fraud or theft, personal privacy breaches, and hackers’ attacks (Gefen et al., 2003; Kesharwani and Bisht, 2012). Meanwhile, the general perception is that Internet services are riskier than traditional services. Therefore, consumers’ positive intentions about Internet services (e.g., Internet retail banking) can be affected by their perceptions of the risks associated with these services (Tan, 1999; Cheung & Lee, M 2001; Martin and Camarero, 2008; Bashir et al., 2018).
According to Martins et al. (2014), the prevalent constructs that influence consumers’ behavioral intentions to use Internet retail banking are trust and perceived risk. Many people feel that Internet retail banking lacks trust and includes risks (Namahoot and Laohavichien, 2018). Lee (2010) mobilized trust and risk perception to use Internet retail banking to assess behavioral intentions. In their study, it was found that customer risk reduction develops the intention to use Internet retail banking. Libana-Cabanillas et al. (2013) found that trust was an important determinant in determining customer willingness to switch to Internet retail banking. Akhlaq and Ahmed (2013) provide further evidence to suggest that trust was affected by Internet retail banking, especially in the case of low-income countries. So, banks need to develop techniques for Internet retail banking that can lower their customers' perception of risk and improve trust to impact their behavioral intentions to safeguard the future use of Internet retail banking (Corbitt, Thanasankit, & Yi, 2003).
Many scholars (e.g., Namahoot and Laohavichien, 2018; Bashir et al., 2018; Bashir et al., 2021a) portray perceived risk as a one-dimensional concept and dedicate little interest towards the impact of trust on explicit risks (e.g., social, financial, psychological) as an alternative to overall perceived risk, mainly in the Internet retail banking market. Hong and Cha (2013) and Bashir et al. (2018) argue that instead of overall perceived risk, the effect of risk might be relevant to specific risks. For example, a client may think that a bank, while offering its Internet retail banking services, could act deceptively (e.g., transaction fraud); in that case, the financial risk alone is what makes the customer incapable of trust. Therefore, for a detailed understanding of the causal link between perceived risk and trust using empirical analysis, researchers must look at exclusive categories of perceived risk and their effect on trust.