Int. J. Electronic Banking, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018 95 Copyright © 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Beyond household characteristics: what influence adoption of banking innovations in Northern Ghana? Abdallah Abdul-Hanan* Faculty of Agribusiness and Communication Sciences, Department of Agribusiness Management and Finance, University for Development Studies, P.O. Box TL 1882, Tamale, 00233, Ghana Email: abdallahabdulhanan@gmail.com *Corresponding author Baba Hananu Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Internal Audit, University for Development Studies, P.O. Box TL 1882, Tamale, 00233, Ghana Email: savehanan@yahoo.co.uk Haruna Abdul-Rasheed Department of Accountancy, Tamale Polytechnic, P.O. Box 3 E/R, Tamale, 00233, Ghana Email: hrashydeen@yahoo.com Abstract: The quest for maintenance of market share and survival had left no option for banks than to provide quality customer services. This has led to the introduction of information technology (IT) innovations to offer quality services. This study examined the factors influencing intensity of adoption of such innovations in northern Ghana. Using a multi-stage sampling procedure, we obtained data from 476 customers for the study. The Poisson and Negative Binomial models were employed for the analysis. However, the Poisson model fits better to the data than the Negative Binomial model and the results revealed personal/household and attitudinal attributes as the significant determinants of the intensity of adoption in northern Ghana. Specifically, number of visits made by a customer to a bank, relative advantage, trialability and compatibility constitute these attributes. This thus, highlights the importance of introducing innovations that are not only user-friendly, but beneficial in terms of cost. Keywords: adoption; banking; count data models; IT innovations; Ghana. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Abdul-Hanan, A., Hananu, B. and Abdul-Rasheed, H. (2018) ‘Beyond household characteristics: what influence adoption of banking innovations in Northern Ghana?’, Int. J. Electronic Banking, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.95–112.