Examining the value priorities influencing the adoption of neobanks among both users and non-users in Canada

Neobanks, by providing banking services in a pure digital format, have experienced rapid growth, which has led to a surge in demand for their services among individuals. Infrastructural developments and technological advancements in neobanks have been discussed in many studies, proving that sufficient attention has already been paid academically to the technological aspects of neobanks. Despite these studies' positivity and compactness on neobanks' recognition, limited studies have explored perceptions of value and their influence on trust formation and adoption behavior among users and non-users. To address these gaps, this exploratory qualitative study gathered data through 40 semi-structured individual and group interviews with 19 neobank users and 21 non-users in Canada. The analysis uncovered a multidimensional structure of perceived value encompassing security, ethical, operational, social responsibility, epistemic, corporate digital responsibility (CDR), and sustainability values. These findings indicate that users and non-users differently assess these dimensions. Users prioritize security, ethical, and operational values, whereas non-users prioritize operational and ethical values before the security values become decisive. Based on these insights, we propose the Value-Based Trust Adoption Model (VTAM), which integrates multidimensional value perceptions with trust formation to explain adoption intentions, considering the moderating effect of anchoring bias. This study extends technology acceptance research by positioning value-based trust over performance expectations as a central mechanism in neobank adoption and offers guidance for designing transparent and responsible digital banking services.