Retail banks and the priority system: the need to balance strategy, capital, people, process and the institutional stature

Many different external causes, such as deregulation and re-regulation, competition, financial innovation, and technology have been generally seen by bankers as important external drivers for changing bank strategies and their strategy focus. All this is forcing banks to face massive management, structural, ethical and regulatory challenges. The aim of the paper is to outline how much strategy and institutional stature are relevant to retail banks for developing their renaissance. After a brief overview of the challenges which at present retail banks are facing both in the market and after the financial crisis, the paper is focused on how to boost bank transformation and highlight the bank relevance in the market. This is also done by presenting a brief outlook on some of the world’s retail banks strategies, emphasizing their degree of focus. In the conclusions the paper outlines the need to develop a priority system for a retail bank to undertake in order to regain and deserve bank customers’ trust.