Analysing user trust in electronic banking using data mining methods F. Liébana-Cabanillas a , R. Nogueras b , L.J. Herrera c , A. Guillén c,⇑ a Department of Marketing and Market Research, University of Granada, Granada 18071, Spain b MSc in Computer Science, University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain c Department of Computer Technology and Architecture, CITIC-UGR, University of Granada, Granada 18071, Spain article info Keywords: Financial sector Electronic banking Trust Variable selection Multi-objective optimisation MOEAs NSGA-II MOGA Genetic algorithms abstract The potential fraud problems, international economic crisis and the crisis of trust in markets have affected financial institutions, which have tried to maintain customer trust in many different ways. To maintain these levels of trust they have been forced to make significant adjustments to economic struc- tures, in efforts to recoup their investments and maintain the loyalty of their customers. To achieve these objectives, the implementation of electronic banking for customers has been considered a successful strategy. The use of electronic banking in Spain in the last decade has been fostered due to its many advantages, giving rise to real integration of channels in financial institutions. This paper reviews different methods and techniques to determine which variables could be the most important to financial institutions in order to predict the likely levels of trust among electronic banking users including socio-demographic, economic, financial and behavioural strategic variables that entities have in their databases. To do so, the most recent advances in machine learning and soft-computing have been used, including a new selection operator for multiobjective genetic algorithms. The results obtained by the algorithms were validated by an expert committee, ranking the quality of them. The new methodology proposed, obtained the best results in terms of optimisation as well as the highest punctuation given by the experts. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction: The economic crisis and trust in the financial sector The behaviour of the financial system against the economic crisis has been different among the countries within the European Union. While many international institutions focused their interest on credit and risk transfer, neglecting customer service, the banking sector continued to have an extensive network of offices through which to distribute financial products and to foster close client rela- tionships. This very competitive environment forced banks to strictly control costs, which has made the financial system one of the world’s most efficient (spsacctoremoveAPAÁlvarez, 2008). De- spite these advantages, the Spanish financial system was also in a precarious position particularly due to its exposure in real estate. In the latter part of the 90’s and in the early part of the last decade there was an excess supply of real estate and therefore a large de- mand for financing. This situation forced financial institutions to go to wholesale markets since domestic markets did not have the resources to cover as much investment as was being generated. Due to this and the pressing international crisis, the government and the Central Bank had to intervene different economies, among them, the Spanish (Liébana-Cabanillas et al., 2011). The Spanish financial sector has already started to change as a result of this situation thanks to the Bank Restructuring Fund (FROB 1 ), and new regulations which will be introduced in 2013 with the advent of Basilea III 2 and more recently the Royal Decree for restructuring of the Spanish Savings Banks. According to the latest report on ‘‘Individual Financial Behaviour in Spain 2009’’ developed by Inmark (2009), 55.1% of the sample says their trust in the Spanish financial sector has worsened compared with 0.9% stating that it has improved and 40.1% who say there has been no change. In this com- plicated situation, the Spanish financial system has had to make technological improvements to reduce costs and optimize invest- ments. Of all the available tools used to achieve these objectives, electronic banking has been the most widely implemented. Traditionally, financial products and services have been distrib- uted through bank branches due to their proximity to customers, the large number of services they perform, the added value that the client receives at the branch, and the important role bank branches play in decisions made by customers. In spite of this, 0957-4174/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2013.03.010 ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: aguillen@ugr.es (A. Guillén). 1 The Bank Restructuring Fund was established by Royal Decree-Law 9/ 2009 of June 26, 2009, restructuring banks and strengthening the resources of credit institutions. The objective of this Fund is to manage bank restructuring processes and help strengthen their resources. The initial funding provided for this Fund is 9.000 million euros. 2 Basilea III requires financial institutions to increase reserves to 7% of their of holding to be able to handle crisis situations. Expert Systems with Applications 40 (2013) 5439–5447 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Expert Systems with Applications journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa