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The British retail banking market has changed markedly since the beginning of the 1970s, and important trends and developments have increased the competitive pressures facing banks. The whole nature of competition in British retail banking has altered. New competitors and new forms of competition have appeared with increasing rapidity. These changes and the associated pressures on banks have intensified during the 1980s. At the same time, banks have increased the comparative importance of retail banking within their strategies. These pressures and their associated implications for British retail banking strategy are explored. It is emphasised that marketing will need increasingly to dominate bank strategies in retail banking. This orientation towards marketing has important strategic and managerial consequences for banks.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate employment of positioning strategies in the retail bank sector of Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically using Ghana as the study context. In addition, it explores the applicability of western-based typology of positioning strategies in the Sub-Saharan African environment.

Six retail banks – three national and three foreign – are studied, each through an in-depth case study method: covert and participant observation techniques; and face-to-face interviews of chief executive officers, marketing managers, and bank branch managers provided data for the study.

The results show that the “service” positioning strategy is the most popular strategy employed by retail banks. “Value for money,” “attractiveness,” “brand name,” and “country of origin” positioning strategies are also dominant. “Top of the range” and “selectivity” strategies are minimally pursued by the sample of banks studied. The results reveal that both foreign and national retail banks employ multiple positioning strategies in the face of competition. However, foreign retail banks consistently employ a; large number of strategies relative to national retail banks. This paper supports the applicability of a western-derived set of positioning strategies in the Sub-Saharan African marketplace.

This study closes a gap in the understanding of positioning, as well as filling the empirical gap in the application of positioning. In addition, it helps resolve a contextual gap of knowledge in Sub-Saharan Africa’s retail banking sector.

This study responds to Porter (1996), Clancy and Trout (2002), and Knox (2004) for continued empirical research in positioning in service industries and specifically in Sub-Saharan African economies (Coffie, 2014, 2016; Coffie and Owusu-Frimpong, 2014). Moreover, this research adds value to the banking and marketing literatures through a qualitative case study method, which is an important yet overlooked research method (Yin, 2009).

As structural changes, new market entrants, new technologies and increasing customer demands gather momentum, retail banks are under pressure to reduce their cost structures so that they can remain competitive. The banks are in danger of over reacting to these new pressures by neglecting the strategic value of their own institutional stature. Even though there is growing evidence that retail customers are not very happy with the services that banks deliver, customers still trust their banks as a safe and secure place to keep their money. They do so because of the bank’s institutional stature rather than their sophistication in customer service. The implications of this paper for both academics and practitioners are that many banks may be overlooking the importance of institutional stature as an important service differentiator and industry entry barrier.

This paper aims to investigate the differences in patronage factors influencing “retail customers” and “institutional clients” to bank Islamically and to identify the reasons bankers perceive that their customers’ bank with them in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

A total of 237; 416; and 70 balanced responses were collected from Islamic bankers, retail customers and institutional clients of UAE, respectively. Weighted average scores were computed for ranking the selection criteria factors across the data set and paired comparison analysis was conducted to analyse the variation of selection criteria between the data sets.

Empirical results indicate that Islamic banking practitioners maintain an identical perception with retail customers in relation to the selection criteria of Islamic banking products and services, with the “Sharīʿah-compliance” factor dominating other factors under examination. With respect to the perception regarding institutional/corporate clients, Islamic bankers exhibited a divergent perception in connection with selection criteria of Islamic banking products and services and the factor “cost and affordability” and “rates and return” are prioritized above factor “Sharīʿah-compliance”.

The scope of the study is limited to a single country. Hence, the finding of this study cannot be generalized to the other regions. Although the study covers a considerable sample from each segment, still there is an avenue for improvement by covering more respondents into the survey. Consequently, the results of this study should be read with these limitations. Further, analysis of the variation among intra divisions of each segment such as Muslim and non-Muslim with respect to retail customers; the different level of management at the banks and focusing the specific sector of the industry is beyond the scope of this study. These directions provide avenues for future research.

The study provides useful insights for bankers to revisit their marketing strategies to attract and retain more clients. Hence, the findings also suggest policy recommendations for nascent Islamic banking markets to move to the next stages of maturity. The findings of this study have implications for firms’ strategic directions and future investments of organizations, especially when the competition in the industry is intense. Future studies are recommended in other countries where the Islamic financial market share is significant.

While ample perception studies have carried out in the Islamic banking industry of the UAE, studies that focus on institutional clients, especially with reference to the factors that determine the selection criteria; studies examining banker’s perception towards Islamic banks and their clients (retail and institutional); studies that reconcile the perception of bankers and customers (retail and institutional) are all inadequately covered in existing literatures. This study attempts to fill some of these significant gaps.

The purpose of this paper is to consider in the light of the post August 2007 banking crises, how “fair” access to retail banking services for British households and small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) can be assured.

The current responsibility for assuring the bank customers are “treated fairly” belongs to the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The paper argues for the establishment of a banking commission to regulate retail banks as utilities, leaving the FSA to concentrate on prudential (“risk based”) supervision of bank and non‐bank financial institutions.

If access to payments services is infrastructural and access to finance is regarded as essential in a modern society, then retail banks should be regulated as utilities.

The banking crisis led to calls for banks to maintain lending to SMEs and households (especially mortgages). This implies that access to finance, like access to water and electricity, should be assured and that customers should be protected against the “monopoly” powers of large suppliers. Hence, retail banks are utilities and should be regulated as such.

Retail banking is mass market banking where individual customers use local branches of large commercial banks for services such as savings and checking accounts, mortgages, personal loans, car loans, debit cards, credit cards, insurance and other value added services. The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of the retail banking business processes from the perspective of continuity and change and identify the factors that affect these processes and overall performance of the retail banking sector. The aim was to develop a flexible framework for managing forces of continuity and change in retail banking business processes from a strategic perspective.

The data on which this study is based were generated through secondary research using published sources and primary research through focused discussion with industry experts and personal interviews with over 100 experts from leading banks selected using a structured questionnaire.

It was found that most of the public sector banks scored high on the continuity forces and relatively low on the change forces. Most of the private‐sector banks studied scored high on continuity and also high on change forces making them more competitive, except one bank which is low on both the forces because it is a newly established bank. The study suggests that there is a need for public sector banks to focus their strategies on factors affecting change forces for the improvement of their overall performance in the long run.

The paper brings in the need for social responsibility for private sector banks and a need for a fine balance in forces of continuity and change for a long‐term sustainable business model.

This research paper represents one of the few efforts to study the business process management of retail banking in India from a strategic perspective and come out with a flexible strategic framework for managing forces of continuity and change for guiding this sector for its long‐term survival and growth. The flexible framework suggested and the C‐C Matrix can be of interest to researchers and practising managers to validate the applicability for other sectors, such as financial services, insurance, corporate finance, mortgages, risk management and other domains. The framework suggested can be adapted for application in the global context.

This monograph covers a number of key articles and presentations by the author over the last decade. The points contained in them reflect a clear belief based on experience of creating significant cultural change so that banks become more market‐driven and customer‐orientated. Many of the forecasts made in the articles have become a reality in the marketplace. This monograph begins with a description of changes over the last decade: the introduction of the marketing function into banks, consumer responses, new competitors, technological developments, and the impact of Government. Marketing has faced many difficulties in the banking industry and competitive breakthroughs have not been easy to achieve. Many leaders in the industry believe in business/marketing strategy evolving in close association with IT planning – this is the second topic, IT support may be crucial. The importance of advertising and management of agency relationships is the subject of Chapter 3 – how can it be effectively used? Chapter 4 looks at the ways in which the consumer is presently getting a better deal; Chapter 5 describes the marketing success of the NatWest Piggy Bank within the context of a changing marketing culture. A wider repertoire of marketing techniques are used in the USA (Chapter 6) but if they are to be used in the same way here then the situation will need to approximate more closely to that of the USA – credit and credit cards are the particular focus and the US market is more aggressive. Chapters 7‐9 look at the future of financial services marketing from the retailer′s perspective – the retailer′s detailed approach to a possible new business has distinctive strengths, but their actual opportunities in this market may be restricted to an extent by, for example, inexperience and so lower credibility as vendors of some specialised services like investment management. Chapter 10 appraises the value and strategic nature of market research. Chapter 11 considers the movement of building societies into the wider personal financial services marketplace, the product′s role in the marketing mix, and the impact of the Single Market in Europe. Chapter 12 singles out the cost‐effective technique of automated vetting of customers′ creditworthiness from the special viewpoint of the building society. The monograph concludes with a discussion of the changing market and future prospects: the world of finance is no longer simple; money is no longer the common denominator; the consumer is now the focus; competition to provide services is fierce; the future is exciting!

Retail Bankers must redefine their business if they are to compete profitably against non‐bank financial institutions (NBFI) in the consumer market. Banks have hitherto been slow to respond to change and to include NBFI as competitors, recognising only tardily that consumers are becoming more financially sophisticated, that deregulation is moving traditional barriers and technology changing the face of competition. Although NBFI have taken the lead in the consumer fianancial services marketplace, the race has only just begun, and in ten years' time some of the banks represented in today's market will have established strong and profitable positions, due to the development of market‐driven strategies and consumer marketing techniques.

The Independent Banking Commission (Vickers) Report is not only one of the most significant developments in the banking regulatory and supervisory context in the UK in recent times but is also one that would considerably impact banking and capital markets functions and trends in this decade. The purposes of this paper are two‐fold: to analyse the interim Vickers Report within the larger paradigm of the prudential banking regulatory approach in the UK, particularly in the context of the debate of bailing out banks that are too‐big‐to‐fail; and to critically examine the recommendation of the Report in the context of the failure of Northern Rock in 2007. The central focus of the paper is to analyse the probable impact and shortcomings of the key recommendation of the Vickers Report, i.e. requirement to hold an additional capital buffer in order to separately ring‐fence retail functions and retail deposits of universal banks and financial institutions operating in the UK.

The method used is a combination of legal examination and case‐study based analysis. This paper sees the failure of Northern Rock as essentially a consequence of supervisory lapses by the FSA and raises relevant critical questions as to the efficacy of the recommendation of the Vickers Report in the context of such supervisory lapses and failures. While relying primarily on official publications in the public domain, journal articles, academic writings, and, newspaper articles, this paper explores the related regulatory and financial implications of the Vickers Report recommendation in the backdrop of the banking crisis in the UK.

The paper concludes that the key recommendation of the Vickers Report, to ring‐fence retail functions universal banks operating in the UK, goes only mid‐way in securing the twin objectives of stability and safety that the Report has set out to achieve.

The present Report is an interim one and the final version of the Report is expected in September. Further, various oversight reports and recommendations by the FSA and other bodies are expected as a follow‐up to the final Report. The key recommendation of the requirement for universal banks operating in the UK to hold additional capital for ring‐fencing their retail functions and deposits is not expected to undergo any substantial modification or revision in the final Report.

This paper is of immense significance to bankers, supervisors, lawyers, auditors, consultants, researchers, jurists, and, those engaged in or with various issues and sectors in financial and banking regulation.

The philosophy behind banks' current High Street profiles is based on four main guidelines: the need for cash movement; security of staff/money from robberies; indication of stability/substance; and wide facility for in‐/out‐payments. This has led to a perception of bank branches as cold, unfriendly places, discouraging customer visits. The retailing approach will impact on branch style and structure, possibly creating individual, business‐specific banks within banks which can deal with both the heavy user cash customer and the high net worth customer, in the same way that aircraft travel is sold as business, economy and first class services through the same aircraft and facilities. With ATMs and home banking (such as the Minitel system being pioneered in France) reducing cash security requirements, bank branches will be able to exploit the freedom from counter barriers to make customers feel more welcome. Finally staff must be trained and helped, through incentives, to take a more positive and welcoming attitude.