Banking without limits: a bibliometric analysis of scholarly works on electronic banking

Abstract

Purpose

This paper reviews scholarly literature on electronic banking (EB) research over a three-decade period. The focus of this review is to evaluate the intellectual structure and trends and unearth new areas in the research domain of EB.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing data from the Scopus database, a bibliometric analysis was performed on 2,391 research articles published in the EB domain. The articles were examined and synthesized through volume analysis, citation analysis, authorship analysis and the level of collaboration, co-citation analysis and keyword co-occurrence analysis. A well-known bibliometric tool, VOSviewer, was used to create and analyse various bibliometric maps, networks and tables.

Findings

This study uncovers the temporal and spatial trends of publications on EB, the most influential documents, authors, productive publication outlets, countries in the domain, the status of collaboration and the major themes that have been studied in the literature. The publication trail over the years has been gauged using overlay visualization.

Practical implications

This paper highlights new concepts that have emerged in EB over the past three decades and suggests future avenues for research in this area.

Originality/value

Research in the domain of EB is empirical, with only a handful of studies being literature reviews. This is the first-of-its-kind study that aims to trace the development of electronic banking over the past 29 years, from 1994 to 2022, through bibliometric analysis and network visualization.

Citation

Mintah, R., Owusu, G.M.Y., Amoah-Bekoe, R. and Obro-Adibo, G. (2024), "Banking without limits: a bibliometric analysis of scholarly works on electronic banking", International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBM-02-2023-0086