For several years, banks have been faced with a new customer context and must take into account the dematerialization of exchanges, the need for personalization expected by customers, the complexity of multichannel and the digitalization of uses. However, this shift to the digital form involves major challenges in terms of cost incurred and expected performance. This article will be devoted to the study of the effects of the digital era on the performance recorded by Moroccan banks. Based on structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis, we exploited the financial data of eight Moroccan banks covering the period 2007–2022, which we split into two sub-periods: pre-digital (2007–2014) and (2014–2022) as the era of digital emergence. This demarcation allows us to make a longitudinal comparison to ensure that the appropriation of digital has had a difference on banking performance, approximated by the net interest margin (NIM) recorded during the digital era. Our results reveal that the digital era has no significant effect on the performance of the banks studied. It therefore seems that banking efforts in the digital era are motivated more by a strategy of mimicry aimed at aligning with competitors and new entrants, than by a financially justified digital transformation project. Thus, Moroccan banks need to make more efforts to capture value from their digital transformation journey.