Secure Savings and Credit Cooperatives’ Mobile Banking Service Provision through Cyber-Security Impact Mitigation

Abstract

The rapid development of mobile technology has resulted in the domination of mobile devices as the main channel through which people conduct most of their day-to-day communication, business and leisure activities. Several financial institutions are incorporating mobile banking and financial services as a key component of their growth strategy. However, the increasing capabilities that mobile technology offers have brought about a large number of security challenges to mobile banking. We investigated the Cyber-Security Compromises Impact Mitigation for Secure Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) Mobile Banking Service Provision in Kenya. In order to achieve this, the cyber-security challenges experienced in SACCOs in Kenya were determined approaches being used to minimize their impact to mobile banking service provision by SACCOs evaluated. We further modelled a secure mobile banking service provision framework and developed an application for establishing the level of user perceived secure mobile banking in mobile banking systems in SACCOs. Mixed method research design was adopted whereby survey research design was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data that was used to inform the second phase of the study that took on experimental format. A user perceived secure mobile banking service provision tool was developed. Stratified and purposive sampling were employed to select the SACCOs in Kisumu and Kakamega Counties. Since SACCOs in the whole republic operate under the same regulations, SACCOs from the counties selected were considered representative of SACCO operations within Kenya. Questionnaires, interviews and Rapid Application Development tools were used in the study. Questionnaires and interviews were used for data collection. Rapid Application Development (RAD) technique was used to develop an application for assessing the level of user perceived secure mobile banking service provision. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the collected data to determine the cyber-security challenges experienced as well as evaluating the measures employed by SACCOs to ensure secure mobile banking service delivery. Thematic analysis provided additional data on trends on cyber-security to enable modeling of a cyber-security framework for secure SACCO mobile banking as well as a tool for establishing the level of secure mobile banking services provided by the mobile banking system. Triangulation of data collection methods as well as the data itself was used to enhance validity and reliability of the study. Results showed that cyber security challenges negatively affect secure mobile banking service delivery. The findings will benefit the SACCOs and its mobile banking service customers, financial institutions, Kenya government, ICT regulatory bodies and telecommunication companies in managing cybercrime for effective mobile banking services.