Extraction and evaluation of willingness to pay the depositors of banks based on ethical banking techniques and discrete choice experiment

Due to the widespread use of discrete choice experiments in extracting preferences, the present study uses this method in order to identify and evaluate the variables affecting the decisions and preferences of depositors in banks with an ethical approach. At first, by studying foreign and domestic research works, the components related to ethical banking were identified. Then, in consultation with banking experts, eight variables including »Deposit interest rates«, »Bank ownership status«, »Profit and profitability objectives«, »Environmental objectives«, »Loan interest-free objectives«, "Poverty reduction and unemployment reduction objectives«, »Cultural and artistic objectives«, and »Accountability And the bank's responsibility for goals and priorities« were selected as important factors influencing the decisions of depositors in ethical banks (assuming the stability of other economic conditions).

Given the widespread use of the discrete choice experiment model in extracting preferences for goods and services for which there is either no market or the market is incomplete, this research seeks to extract and evaluate the willingness to pay for non-market variables of ethical banking. It is then followed by several other steps. First, using D-Optimal, the final options were selected from all the possible options to examine the preferences of ethical banking depositors; the selection of the number of alternatives and the set of questions was based on what was found common in such studies. The set of prepared selections and the requested economic information were distributed in the form of 100 questionnaires randomly among the target population. About 82 completed questionnaires were collected. It should be noted that the sample sizes, despite the lack of a clear criterion for determining it and the lack of financial support for the implementation of the research, was almost consistent with the average sample size in similar foreign works.

Regarding the depositors' preferences for ethical banking, the results show that, out of the total eight variables included in the model, four variables including »Deposit interest rate«, »Bank ownership status«, »Poverty reduction targets and unemployment reduction« and »Bank responsibility for goals and priorities« have significant effects on the decisions of depositors of banks with an ethical approach. In other words, according to the coding performed, the increased interest rate on deposits, the governmental nature of the type of bank, the pursuit of goals to reduce poverty and unemployment by the bank and the bank's accountability for goals and priorities make it likely for depositors to turn to ethical banks. While the other four variables, despite their importance in theoretical discussions of ethical banking, are statistically meaningless, which confirms that such activities are not attractive to depositors and, therefore, they are not inclined to pursue such activities. Including them in the portfolio offered by the bank or credit institution has, thus, no effect on the willingness and likelihood of referring to banks with an ethical approach. In the respect of willingness to pay, considering the interest rate of the deposit as a normalizing monetary variable, the variable »Objectives to reduce poverty and reduce unemployment« has the most positive impact on depositors' decisions among other model variables. So, every person is willing to give up the 5.13% interest rate on deposits, but the funds deposited with the bank will be used in order to reduce the level of poverty and unemployment or in exchange for ignoring this amount of interest on the deposit of financial assets to be spent in this particular way. In contrast, the variable of bank ownership (whether private or public) had the least effect on the decision-making portfolio of the respondents (depositors). This is because each person is only willing to give up about 1% of the deposit interest if the bank is state-owned. It indicates the low importance of the variable of the type of bank ownership in the portfolio of the preferences of the depositors of ethical banks.

From the respondents' point of view, the concept of ethical banking is summarized only in the context of the goals of reducing poverty and unemployment, and it has the highest priority in the basket of people’s preferences. However, the ethics of banking paradigm has various dimensions, and it seems that depositors are not convinced in relation to the other dimensions and related components, including environmental issues and accountability and supervision.