Aim: To study the factors influencing the professionals adopting green banking in Uttarakhand, India. It achieves this by examining the manner in which socio-cognitive routes of the Theory of Planned Behavioural (TPB) are moderated by geographical location (rural vs urban) and mediated by attitude. It fills an important gap in the knowledge on attitude and social influence in different ways affecting the intention of adopting certain behaviours in areas with high sociocultural and infrastructural differences

Design/methodology/approach: Subjective Norms was also adapted to a collectivist context, as Social Influence and a quantitative study was used, with the factor of PBC removed because of ceiling effects. The analysis demonstrated measurement invariance and tested data from 350 professionals (175 urban and 175 rural) from four districts of Uttarakhand with analyses of the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) and Multi-Group Analysis (MGA).

Results: Attitude has a significant impact on the Behavioural Intention, and Social Influence has a significant impact on the Behavioural Intention and Attitude. Attitude partially mediates the relationship between Social Influence and Intention. Multi-group analysis reveals that geographic context is a significant moderator of the effects of the constructs on the model. Among rural professionals, the influence of Social Influence on Attitude is greater, as is the indirect influence of Social Influence on Intention via Attitude, whereas, the direct influence of Attitude and Social Influence on Intention is greater among urban professionals. The model explains 78.4% of the variation in behavioural intention.

Research limitations/implications – The major limitations are that there is no multi-state coverage and the cross-sectional design. Additional research is required with other variables (e.g., perceived risk) and using a longitudinal study design to account for other areas. This paper highlights in particular that geographic context is a key boundary condition of the TPB in sustainable finance.

Originality/value: – This research is one of the first empirical investigations to highlight how the urban-rural divide has a fundamental impact on the psychological processes of green banking adoption. The results give a valid indication of how to formulate geographically specific approaches compared to one-size-fits-all approaches in fragmented markets