This work focused on finding the relationship between customers‟ knowledge of Jaiz bank Nigeria PLC and patronage of the first full pledged Islamic bank in Nigeria. There are various studies on Islamic banking that covered a wide range of issues including those on Islamic bank patronage factors. The studies, which are mostly foreign-based, have documented mixed findings. The mixed nature of the foreign-based studies provides a motivation for further research into the various factors that affect customer patronage of Islamic banks.The broadobjective of the study is to examine customers‟ knowledge of various Jaiz Islamic banking products and their patronage of the bank. Along the broad objectives, specific objectives of the study include ascertaining the effect of customers‟ religion, customers‟ level of education, customers‟ experience, customers‟ product value, customers‟ expert insight and customers‟ contextual information on their patronage of Jaiz bank products in northern Nigeria.
The study utilized survey research design. Data was collected using hand delivered questionnaires in a survey. The population of this study is 112,000 respondents. Using simple random sampling procedure, the sample was found to be 417 respondents made up of 400 Muslims and 17 Christians both male and female were selected to participate in this study. Factor analysis, Pearson's correlation, and multiple regression methods of data analysis were utilized for hypotheses testing. The results of the correlation analysis revealed values of the association betweencustomers‟ religion, customers‟ levels of education, customers‟ product experience, customers‟ product value and customers‟ product expert insight were-.017, .219. .843, .567and .579 respectively as they arerelated tocustomers‟ patronage of Jaiz bank products.
The multiple regression results indicate that experience, expert insight and value jointly explained 78.0% of the variance of Islamic banking patronage. It also shows that four ofthe predictor variables;education, experience, expert insight and value were found to have statistically significant association with Islamic banking products (IBP). Customers‟ experience of Islamic banking products was the strongest contribution predictor (.663) that explains the variance of Islamic banking IB products then followed by value (.193) variable. The study recommends that product experience should be more positively enhanced. In this respect, the principle of rukhsa (fair and lower returns) in business transactions needs to be more thoroughly applied in the bank‟s transactions with customers. Product expert insight should be vigorously enhanced through massive education of current and future customers by current and prospective IB operators. This is achievable through sponsorship of educational programmesin the mass media and social media networks.
The study further recommends that IB providers and researches should analyze the size of different categories of products patronage.The aim is to targetimprovements on customers‟ value to sustain and attract more customer patronage of the bank‟s products and services. This can be achieved through exploring more customer friendly techniques and technologies.
