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This study aims to investigate sustainability practices in the banking industry, focusing on a developing economy. It uses the triple-bottom-line framework to answer the following research question: how do banks in Nigeria conceptualise sustainability, and what role does it play in their banking practices?

This study adopts a social constructivist approach in its exploration of banking sustainability practices in an emerging economy, and the research design is a purpose-based (exploratory) approach. The qualitative data was collected from 33 bank personnel from various bank units and departments through semi-structured interviews to achieve the research objective.

The study reveals a lack of sustainability policies and programmes, as banks focus mainly on profitability. It uncovers unfair treatments of bank workers through casualisation, low wages and work overload. It indicates that most banks in developing countries ignore environmental considerations, as they still carry out paper-based transactions and use diesel-powered generators, which cause various negative environmental impacts. It also confirms that governments and banks in the country are not doing enough to propagate sustainable practices and banks have also not taken advantage of the sustainability concept to promote their brands; instead, they consider it as requiring additional operational costs.

The findings demonstrate the need for banks to see sustainability from a marketing point of view and adopt sustainable practices to create additional value that will improve their brand image and enhance their competitiveness.

The importance of sustainability in the banking industry in emerging economies is considered a viable means of contributing to the overall development goals of the United Nations as the world tries to preserve the environment. It also highlights the consequences of inaction or unsustainable banking practices.

Over the years, a considerable depth of research has established the link between trust, commitment and relationship marketing and its relevance to consumers’ brand preferences. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of research on how they are linked to religiosity. Accordingly, this paper aims to address the palpable gap.

This paper is conceptual and draws from the eclectic review of the extant literature that revolves around the key themes associated with the topic.

The paper emphasises the significance of trust and religiosity in consumers’ commitment to specific market offerings and brands which invariably strengthen relationship marketing. A model entitled Brand-faith Relationship model (BFR) is proposed to understand brand positioning in the marketplace in relation to faith. With this model, a four-category typology of brand position scenarios is suggested in this paper. Passive brand-faith relationship, faith trust established in the absence of brands, brand loyalty without any faith associations and brand loyalty, with positive brand-faith relationship.

This paper has significant implications for brand management in relation to segmentation, targeting and the positioning of brands in the marketplace. It also raises marketers’ consciousness on the potency of trust embedded in consumers’ faith/religiosity in their brand preferences.

This paper explores the concepts of trust and consumers’ brand choices within the relationship marketing literature vis-à-vis the role of religion, which is rarely examined.