What Lies Beneath the Tap: Unlocking Digital Trust and Retention

Abstract

Mobile banking has become a core customer interface for payments, fund transfers, bill payments, balance inquiries, and everyday financial management in Pakistan. This study examines how app usability and digital trust influence customer satisfaction and customer loyalty/retention among mobile banking and mobile financial app users. Customer satisfaction is tested as a mediator, while digital literacy is examined as a moderator of app usability-satisfaction and digital trust-satisfaction relationships. A quantitative cross-sectional design was used. The data file contained 170 usable responses collected through a structured Google Forms-style questionnaire using five-point Likert-scale items. Composite reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, direct effects, mediation, and moderation were assessed using composite-based path analysis. The results show that app usability and digital trust both have significant positive effects on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction significantly predicts customer loyalty/retention, and digital trust also has a significant direct effect on loyalty. Bootstrapping supports the mediating role of satisfaction in both the app usability-loyalty and digital trust-loyalty relationships. However, digital literacy does not significantly moderate either antecedent-satisfaction path at the .05 level. The findings suggest that mobile banking retention in Pakistan depends mainly on usable app design, transaction confidence, and satisfaction-based relationship continuity.