| dc.description.abstract | Agency banking has become one of the essential services in the banking sector in
bringing their services closer to the people at the grass - root or in remote areas. This
study focused on the factors influencing the use of agency banking by the residents of
Kitui County, Kenya. The researcher was guided by the following objectives:- To
determine the influence of the agent characteristics on use of Agency banking, to
determine the influence of the banking products offered by agency banking on the use of
agency banking , to assess the extent to which opening hours influence the use of agency
banking, and to establish the influence of location of banks on the use of agency banking
by Residents of Kitui County, Kenya. The study used descriptive survey design and the
target population were all the bank agents in Kitui County. The respondents were
selected using simple random sampling. Data was collected using questionnaires and
interview schedules. Data analysis was done quantitatively using inferential statistics
mean, mode, median and percentages with the help of statistical package for social
scientists (SPSS) and then presented in tables. Qualitative data was analyzed
thematically according to the study objectives. The findings of the study were that; there
was a strong positive correlation between agency characteristics and Agency banking
use (r = 0.80, p = 0.04) meaning there is a significant relationship between the agency
bank characteristics and the use of agency banking (p<0.05), there is a strong positive
correlation between banking products and Agency banking (r = 0.78, p = 0.02) implying
there is a significant relationship between the agency banking products and the use of
agency banking (p<0.05), there is a strong positive correlation between banking products
and Agency banking use (r = 0.78, p = 0.02) implying there is a significant relationship
between the agency bank products and the use of agency banking (p<0.05) and that there
is a strong positive correlation between long opening hours and Agency banking use (r =
0.86, p = 0.03) and that there is a significant relationship between the agency bank
opening hours and the use of agency banking (p<0.005). This means that the opening
hours influenced the use of agency banking. The multiple regression analysis results
showed that the banking products had the highest contribution of change in the dependent
variable (). This means one unit change in banking products would increase the
agency banking use by 1.777 units. The recommendations from the study were that;
Banks should do more advertising to sensitize the public on the availability and the
services offered by their agents, the Banks should diversify the products they offer to
their customers at the agencies to include the credit facilities, Agents should have more
money so that those who want to withdraw more would not be forced to go to physical
bank branches, and there should be a guideline for the opening and closing time for the
agency banking so as to enhance service delivery and uniformity among similar banking
agents. | en_US |
