Assessment of banking awareness among working women: An empirical study in India

Abstract

Purpose- The purpose of this study is to assess the Banking Awareness level of Working Women in India. In addition, it examines the difference in the level of banking awareness of the respondents based on their workplace/ occupation.

Design/ Methodology/ Approach- A modified questionnaire has been developed which attempted to to assess the awareness level of respondents towards bank deposits (6 questions), Awareness about advances (9 questions), Awareness about instruments (6 questions), Awareness about the price of products (4 questions) and Awareness about new banking technologies (8 questions). The data was personally collected by the researcher using convenient sampling from 470 working women who were working in various government and private sectors. The total number of Questionnaires responded i.e., 470, were further reduced to 438 because of the reason that 32 questionnaires were excluded carrying extreme bias or incomplete data. The banking awareness level of respondents was assessed using a Weighted Average Score ranging from Highest to Lowest. The ANOVA Test was run to find out whether there is any significant difference in the level of Banking awareness among respondents based on their workplace.

Findings- The banking awareness among working women based on parameters like Bank Deposits, Advances, Banking Instruments, Price of Products and New Banking Technologies is at moderate level. The highest level of awareness among working women was found to be regarding banking instruments with mean= 3.44 followed by Awareness about Advances with mean= 3.28, Awareness about Price of Products with mean= 3.18, New Banking Technology with mean= 3.08 and Bank Deposits with mean= 2.98. Based on the workplace or type of occupation it was found that there exists a significant difference in the banking awareness level of respondents. However, with regard to ‘Banking Instruments’ the banking awareness level is not significantly different among respondents based on workplace.