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rations, mainly through the use of the Herfindahl index as a summary statistic of the intensity of petition. In the banking industry this strategic ponent is studied in Hannan and McDowell (1984) and Hannan and McDowell (1987) in the adoption of automated teller machines (ATMs), and in Akhavein et al. (2005) for the adoption of credit Karshenas and Stoneman (1993) summarize the determinants of the decisions to adopt a new technology in a petitive These determinants are structured around four different mechanisms: rank, stock, order, and epidemic effects. Rank effects,mainly related to firm size, stem from the fact that adoption costs typically increase less than proportionally with the size of the firm and decrease over time. As a result, firms adopt according to their size: Larger firms adopt the new technology earlier. Stock effects relate to the idea that the benefits from adopting a new technology depend strategically on the number of firms that have already adopted it. Order effects arise when the return from adoption depends on the order in which firms have adopted – for example, because of preemption motives: Firms might adopt a new technology early to make later adoption unprofitable to petitors. Finally, epidemic effects assume that the diffusion of new technologies is faster when more firms have adopted them.The decision to provide online banking services is different from the replacement of an existing technology studied in the classical examples in the adoption literature. Instead, online banking coexists with the traditional channels that include not only bank branches but also telephone banking. For example, opening a new account requires the customer to visit the bank branch, and this is also (together with ATMs) the main way to withdraw or deposit money. At the same time, online banking reduces the cost of providing a wide variety of products to customers. Whether different channels substitute for or plement each other is an empirical question. Corrocher (2006) for example, finds that in Italy online banking and physical presence (measured as branching intensity) are substitutes. One interpretation is that, for lessestablished banks (with fewer branches), online banking is a more efficient way to access new clients. In a sample of US banks in the late 1990s, however, DeYoung et al. (2007) find that branching intensity and online banking are plementary and show that online banking adoption positively affects the bank’s future Despite the importance of online banking, the literature on its adoption is still scarce. Very few papers have studied the demand for these services. One example is Chang (2003), who studies the consumer adoption decision of this technology in South Korea. The author infers that risk aversion and customer inertia make bank investments in this new technology unlikely to be concludes that bank adoption might arise as a result of its positive reputation effects or preemptive motivations toward petitors.2. The pattern of online banking adoptionCustomers interact with their banks in several ways. Although most transactions traditionally occurred at the branch counter, new technologies have reduce