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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the Jordanian anti-money laundering law and its instructions on the Jordanian banking industry. The anti-money laundering law in Jordan is newly enacted, but there are new developments not covered by the law. For instance, the revolutionary wave known as the Arab Spring surrounding Jordan has increased the crime rates in Jordan, and it has also reduced international coordination and cooperation to encounter money laundering operations. The emergence of new means for money transfer is affecting the efficiency and speed of bank transfers. Subsequently, the impact of the law on Jordanian banks is unknown.

This paper relies on the Jordanian Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Law 2007 as a primary source of information. The relevant Jordanian anti-money laundering instructions that have directly been affecting banks include the Jordanian Anti Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Instructions Number (51) 2010. These instructions were considered the most important legislation for the purpose of this paper.

While the Jordanian anti-money laundering law is based on certain principles, the effectiveness of the law is unknown. The Arab Spring, particularly the Syrian revolution, has negatively increased the crime rates and money laundering activities in Jordan. To make matters worse, the international cooperation and coordination between countries in combating money laundering are not at the required level, and this has encouraged money laundering groups to exploit the situation. Only time will tell whether the banks will be able to cope sufficiently with the increased anti-money laundering obligations. Obviously, it is critical at this stage to establish effective coordination between legislators, regulators and the banking industry to minimize problems encountered by the banks, thereby to ensure effective implementation of the law.

This paper provides an examination of the impact of the Jordanian anti-money laundering law that has directly affected banks. It is hoped that this paper would provide some insight into this particular area for academics, practitioners, the legal advisers, banks and policy-makers not only in Jordan but also elsewhere. In view of the international nature of money laundering and banking, there will be significant interest in how the anti-money laundering law affects banks operation in Jordan.

This study aims to investigate the relative efficiency pattern of Jordanian banks during the period between 1998 and 2004.

The deterministic data envelopment analysis (DEA) as a quantitative approach was used to obtain the efficiency of individual commercial banks in Jordan.

The results of the DEA Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes model show an increase in bank efficiency in the entire period except in 2003 and 2004 where a decrease in bank efficiency was shown for few banks in the sample. The total efficiency scores suggest that the liberalisation programme has provided the anticipated efficiency gains. Most efficiency scores showed consistent increases after the introduction of the policy with the exception of few banks which have responded differently and shown decreased in efficiency. This may be taken to imply that the banks have responded differently to the new system. The analysis further shows that both assets utilisation and the labour factor had an adverse effect on bank efficiency, especially in terms of number of employees.

The effect of the Jordanian Government liberalisation programme may not be readily discerned in such a relatively short period of time, which may require that a longer time period elapses before this effect becomes noticeable.

The paper analyses the performance of Jordanian banks with regard to their efficiency.

This study aims to assess and measure the sales culture within the commercial banks in Jordan, and to provide top management of these banks with the database which may be required for improving the banks' selling effectiveness.

The study has been conducted on a convenience sample of 1,000 employees selected from those of all the commercial banks operating in Jordan. Sales culture was measured by using the Sales Culture Index (SCI), consisting of 65 statements. The data required for this study were collected by a self‐structured questionnaire.

The findings of the study indicate that the overall employees' perception of sales culture in the surveyed banks is moderate. However, the sales culture in the non‐Jordanian banks was stronger than that in the Jordanian banks.

As is the case in any study, some limitations relevant to this study cannot be abandoned. For instance, the findings of this study are based on self‐report perceptions of both the employees and the customers. Data collected by this approach may or may not be accurate to that extent, which reflects the respondents' real feelings.

The results of this study would enable management in the commercial banks in Jordan to design internal marketing programs aimed at building a strong service‐minded sales culture among employees.

This is a first attempt to assess and measure the sales culture in the commercial banks in Jordan.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the current practices of internal auditors in banks in Jordan regarding risk management, especially the risks they are most involved in dealing with, the nature of their responses in the presence of these risks, and appropriateness (according to the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), 2009a) of these responses.

A questionnaire surveyed views of internal auditors about their roles in risk management. It asked about 20 different types of risks, and, for each individual risk, how internal auditors would respond in its presence.

The role of internal auditors in risk management in banks in Jordan was found to be limited. The risks that internal auditors were most involved in managing were those related to compliance, while the risks least dealt with by internal auditors included those related to the Jordanian economy and culture. Also, most of the respondents reported that they did undertake some inappropriate roles in dealing with the risks.

The findings suggest the possibility that internal auditors are not aware of the importance of several types of risks and of the appropriate roles for internal auditors in risk management. Therefore, increasing awareness of these issues is very important.

The research topic is relatively new and very under-researched in the Jordanian environment. This study is therefore likely to significantly contribute to the knowledge about how internal auditing operates in a developing country context that differs significantly from the contexts where professional internal auditing standards were issued.

The purpose of this paper is to assess differences in banking service quality (BSQ) perceptions across demographic subgroups of Islamic and conventional Jordanian banking consumers.

Data are collected using surveys. The survey contains items for three different measures of overall BSQ perceptions. The researchers mailed surveys to a random sample of 2,000 banking customers in Jordan. Responses to questionnaire items measuring respondents’ BSQ perceptions were analysed using one-way analysis of variance with Tukey’s honest significant difference post hoc tests to assess subgroup differences in six demographic variables: gender, age, occupation, income, education, and religion.

BSQ perceptions are significantly different in four of the six demographic variables. Age and education do not impact on BSQ perceptions.

The findings indicate demographic effects on Jordanian banking consumers’ perceived BSQ. Study limitations include demographic subgroup underrepresentation and survey structure. Future research should obtain a more representative sample for better generalisability.

The findings suggest that Jordanian banks should structure their services to best accommodate their customers’ demographics. In addition, banks can use the findings to guide the development of demographic-driven marketing to target and attract customers efficiently.

This study is the first to investigate demographic differences in the perceived service quality of Jordan’s Islamic and conventional banking customers. The findings can contribute to future research on BSQ, and guide Jordan’s banking management towards more effective marketing and service provision.

This study aims to discuss the main points in the dimensions of the quality of the electronic services to be considered in the future to adapt to future transactions and how to benefit from them.

This study relies on the developments and to cope with them so that the banks and customers shift from dealing in the traditional way to the electronic method, which has become a cause of the gap in understanding customers for electronic banking use of the descriptive-analytical approach. A questionnaire was used as a source for collecting data and information about the study variables. It was distributed to three Jordanian banks, and the number of participants was 170. This study uses two primary sources for collecting data and information: secondary sources that relate to the theoretical aspect and preliminary sources related to the analytical aspect of the study subject.

The results showed that the impact of e-banking quality dimensions of the study (ease of use, time, confidentiality and security) was high, which required the bank to maintain its high levels and monitor them from time to time.

The value of this study comes from the following points: the relationship between the quality of electronic banking services and customer satisfaction; this study is one of the few field attempts in Jordan to assess the impact of the quality of electronic banking services on the satisfaction of customers in banks; this study provides new scientific results on the impact of the quality of electronic banking services on the satisfaction of customers in the Jordanian banks.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to survey views of bankers in Jordan about the usefulness of fair value accounting and major obstacles facing its implementation in practice.

Methodology/Approach – A structured questionnaire was administered to individuals holding high positions in Jordanian banks. The questionnaire covered the respondents' views about the appropriateness of using fair value accounting, the usefulness of fair value figures in terms of their relevance for decision making and the obstacles facing the application of fair value accounting in practice.

Findings – Results of the survey showed that while there was general approval of the use of fair values in financial reporting, there were some reservations about their relevance in terms of predictive value and, more importantly, feedback value. Major obstacles facing the usefulness of fair values in financial reporting included, according to respondents, (1) the possibility of fraud in fair value reporting, (2) the ambiguity of accounting standards on fair value application and (3) the reliability of figures measured using fair value accounting, as opposed to those measured using historical cost accounting.

Social implications – The paper discusses the positive and negative aspects of application of fair value financial reporting in accounting. It discusses how fair value financial reporting may be useful for decision making of users of financial statements and what obstacles may limit this usefulness. The paper also discusses the implications of the findings for Jordan and other emerging economies, including suggested ways to reduce the possible negative effects of fair value accounting.

Originality/Value of paper – Fair value accounting practice is relatively new to Jordan, and the Jordanian context, as a less-developed country with a low-efficiency stock market, is significantly different to the environments in which fair value accounting practices were established. The effects of applying fair value accounting in Jordanian financial reporting practices are under-researched, so this study yields views on the reliability and relevance of fair value measures and the ease of their application in practice that could be specific to the Jordanian environment and differ significantly from results from developed countries. The findings generally support this argument.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the essential factors influencing the adoption and use of e-banking services as perceived by customers of the Jordanian commercial banks.

This paper adapts and modifies the unified theory of acceptance and use of the technology model. Modifications were made to explain intention to use e-banking services.

The modified model explained 0.887 of behavior intention variance and 0.516 percent of the intended degree of e-banking services use variance. Three constructs are found to be good predictors: effort expectancy (EE), social influence, and perceived e-banking services quality. Performance expectancy and hedonic motivation are not significant predictors. However, all three predictors were significantly moderated by age only.

As with any research in the field of IT adoption and consumer behavior, researchers should take into consideration the generalization of their empirical findings. The generalization could be enhanced if future research uses the Jordanian baking sector which includes Jordanian and non-Jordanian banks. Finally, the current research findings are based on the cross-sectional research method. Taking this fact into consideration, the relation between intention and actual use may raise questions. One solution is to study intention and actual use at different points in time by conducting longitudinal research to access and test the research hypotheses.

Managers need to focus on promoting e-banking services in terms of consumer’s EE, social influence, and e-banking service quality. Since young consumers are early adopters, Jordanian banks need to introduce added entertainment values for youth and extra convenience for older consumers.

The main contributions revolve around developing a better understanding of the essential factors influencing the adoption and use of e-banking services. This research incorporates a new variable: perceived e-banking quality. Thus, the proposed model provides better explanatory power than previous research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the main factors predicting the Jordanian customers’ intention and adoption of telebanking.

Perceived usefulness, trust, and self-efficacy are all formulated over the proposed conceptual model as key factors determining behavioural intention while the adoption of telebanking is supposed to be predicted by both behavioural intention and perceived usefulness. A self-administered questionnaire was allocated to gather the empirical data from a convenience sample of Jordanian banking customers. Structural equation modelling was applied to validate the conceptual model and verify the research hypotheses.

Statistical results largely support the predictive validity of the conceptual model which is able to account for 68 per cent of variance in behavioural intention. Additionally, perceived usefulness, trust, and self-efficacy (listed in order of their influence) are all found to be significant factors predicting behavioural intention. Behavioural intention and perceived usefulness were also confirmed to have significant influence on the adoption behaviour.

The data for the current study were obtained by using a convenience sample of Jordanian banking customers; this could negatively reflect on the result generalisability. In addition, this study fully focused on the customers’ perspective; yet, it has not looked at this problem from the service providers’ perspective. Therefore, future studies should look at this challenge from the service providers’ perspective.

This study was able to comprise a fundamental contribution by examining the telebanking as a more novel technology in Jordan, which has not been examined yet. Accordingly, the current study has successfully formulated a deep view regarding the most important aspects predicting the Jordanian customers’ intentions towards such an emerging system. This also helps to provide practical guidelines for banks to choose a suitable marketing strategy that could enhance the customers’ adoption of telebanking.

In recent years financial institutions, marketing researchers and public policy makers have recognised that behavioural analysis is vital for understanding bank customers. Most studies so far have focused on understanding the behaviour of customers of commercial banks in developed economies. Very little research has been undertaken concerning bank customers′ attitudes and behavioural characteristics in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to understand customers′ attitudes, beliefs and perceptions about the services offered by conventional and Islamic banks in Jordan. The information presented here will provide Jordanian bank executives and public policy makers, and other developing country executives, with insights into the kind of services bank customers find most appropriate to their banking needs.