316 Int. J. Web Based Communities, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2007 Copyright © 2007 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Exploring the potential of virtual communities as a business model in banking: the customers’ view Dimitris K. Kardaras* Business Informatics Laboratory Department of Business Administration Athens University of Economics and Business 76 Patission Street Athens 104 34, Greece E-mail: kardaras@aueb.gr *Corresponding author Bill Karakostas Centre for HCI Design School of Informatics City University Northampton Sq. London EC1V 0HB, UK E-mail: billk@soi.city.ac.uk Abstract: Virtual Communities (VCs) are expected to become a new business model that may spawn opportunities for the new digital economy. The business potential of VCs is mainly in terms of increased trust among their members combined with quality services that may improve customer loyalty. This paper reports the findings of an empirical study that was carried out in the financial sector in the UK. This study also investigates the profile of potential members of a financial VC, and discusses the required services. The results are useful for both academics and practitioners who develop and manage VCs. Keywords: Virtual Communities; VCs; banking; customer loyalty; UK survey. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kardaras, D.K. and Karakostas, B. (2007) ‘Exploring the potential of virtual communities as a business model in banking: the customers’ view’, Int. J. Web Based Communities, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp.316–331. Biographical notes: Dr. Dimitris K. Kardaras is an Assistant Professor in the Information Systems Management in the Department of Business Administration at the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB), Athens, Greece. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Informatics and a BSc (Hons) in Management both from the Athens University of Economics and Business, an MSc in Information Systems Engineering and a PhD in Information Systems from the department of Computation at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), England. Dr. Kardaras has participated in many research projects in IS/IT since 1990 and he has been teaching IS courses as a Senior Lecturer at the South Bank University in London for seven years. He has published in the areas of IS planning, fuzzy cognitive maps, IS modelling and e-commerce.