The role of religious norms, trust, importance of attributes and information sources in the relationship between religiosity and selection of the Islamic bank

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to examine the assumption used in previous studies that all Muslims adopt and believe the same law on the prohibition of bank interest and to investigate the indirect effect of religiosity on customers’ decision for using Islamic banking services. Design/methodology/approach This study uses an exploratory approach and the natural experimental design with seemingly causal models. A total of 363 questionnaires were distributed to three groups of bank customers, i.e. Islamic banks customers, conventional banks customers and customers of both banks (121 respondents in each group). Findings The results show that the role of religiosity in the customers’ decision for using the Islamic banking services depends on religious norms variable. Religiosity affects the decision of customers in the traditional group, but it does not have any effect for the contemporary group. Other findings suggest that religiosity indirectly affects the decision for using the Islamic banks through intervening variables of trust and information source. Originality/value This is the first paper to investigate the relationship between religiosity and customers’ decision for using the Islamic banking services by considering the religious norm variable. This paper also examines indirect affects of religiosity to the Islamic banks’ choice through intervening variables of trust and information source.