Quality management banking perspective is extremely interesting, from the point of view of the activities specific, and of the permanent area competition improvement. Banks being aware of the quality problems also lead to the appearance and requirement ofCompetition, Received quality, Expected quality

Dinculescu Elena Silvia

Micuda Ion Dan

English

Research Papers in Economics

537 
 
QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN BANKING SYSTEM 
 
Dinculescu Elena Silvia 
“Constantin  Brancoveanu”  University  Faculty  of  Management-Marketing  Pite ti  Pite ti,  Str. 
Petrochimi tilor, Bl.B1,Sc.C, Ap.18 nataliadinculescu@yahoo.com 0728.020.501 
Micuda Ion Dan  
“Constantin  Brancoveanu”  University  Faculty  of  Management-Marketing  Pite ti,  Str. 
Bascovului Nr. 2A dan.micuda@gmail.com 0723.387.325 
 
Quality management banking perspective is extremely interesting, from the point of view of the activities 
specific, and of the permanent area competition improvement. Banks being aware of the quality problems 
also lead to the appearance and requirement of some area working standards. Standards imposing and 
issuing together with the performance measure system are to be the main elements of a quality program. 
 
Keywords: competition, received quality, expected quality  
 
JEL code: G21 
 
Almost  all  Romanian  commercial  banks  have  focused,  till  recently,  on  certain  categories  of 
clients  when  presenting  their  products  and  departments,  such  as  artificial  persons  (  highly 
developed multinational and national societies with important turnovers), merely ignoring a wide 
category’s of potential clients needs, requirements and expectations (such as SMCs, and, above 
all, the private individuals), but we have been recently encountering a more expansive approach, 
sometimes even an aggressive one, of these categories of clients. Referring to our country’s 
situation, only a tenth of the banking system operating banks have succeeded to implement and 
certify some quality management system. 
These ones have come to the conclusion that quality management’s  means and methods can and 
will be successfully put in practice also for banking, having as an example the international banks 
which have entered their way into national market. It is thus proved that the quality management 
can be a successful way to face the more and more soliciting concurrence from the banking 
market. 
Only by knowing and anticipating the clients’ needs and expectations throughout their dynamic, 
makes  the  success  a  possible  one,  also  focusing  on  the  achievement  and  maintenance  of  a 
maximum satisfaction degree and targeting to preserve clients. 
Thus, the clients’ behavior when coming to the acquisition of a banking product is influenced by 
a series of factors: 
When referring to private individuals, their behavior is being influenced by: 
  -personal  factors  –  associated  to  the  age,  occupation,  life  range,  changes 
  concerning life style, etc.; 
  -economic factors – referring to available incomes, savings, clients’ attitude   towards 
spending-saving money; 
  -cultural  factors–  associated  to  fundamental  believes,  morality,  language,  fidelity, 
  artistic approaches, personal values and traditions etc; 
  -social  factors  –  associated  to  the  affinity  to  a  sample  group  (target  group,  for 
  marketing  area),  which  has  proved  a  certain  experience  and  ascendency  towards 
  the others; 
  -psychological  factors  –associated  to  an  individual’s    psychological  needs  and  to 
  motivation and perception. 
When referring to comopanies, their behavior is being influenced by: 
  -the company’s size; 
  -the economical area in which they perform; 538 
 
  -the leadership/management; 
  -the company’s decision maker’s position; 
  -the company’s financial and commercial outstanding; 
  -the company’s status; 
  -the leaders’ age and efficiency; 
  -the shareholders type and aspirations; 
  -the company’s goals; 
  -the company’s geographical location; 
Banks should  be aware , above all these,  of the following essential aspects when interfering with 
artificial persons: 
  -this  category’s  needs  are  usually  more  complex  than  the  private  individuals’  ones, 
  thus making them harder to be satisfied; 
  -successful  collaborations  with  clients  coming  from  the  artificial  persons’  category 
  can be difficult and expensive to preserve; 
  -certain artificial clients require a specific approach. 
Theoretically speaking, for a private or artificial client to decide and acquire a certain product 
from a bank, it is compulsory to be both attracted to: 
  -interests’  level  (as  low  as  possible  when  coming  to  bank  credits,  and  higher  for 
  the active accounts), taxes and commissions; 
  -the serving quality including the client’s way of welcoming into the bank; 
  -the specific product’s receiving duration. 
According to researches, the Romanian banks’ private clients are both interested in the product’s 
purchasing costs and also in the bank’s vicinity to their homes. The added value for a bank’s 
client also includes the following important specifications, which present one or more adequate 
target values and unique items, certain bank’s structures being active  for each of them: 
  -bank’s accessibility – as great as possible; 
  -products merchandising conditions– as better as possible; 
  -the product’s variety of the offer; 
  -products’ purchasing costs- as low as possible; 
  -interests value –higher for the deposits and lower for the credits; 
  -staff’s attitude and behavior– more turned to the client; 
  -products’ purchasing durations –as fast as possible; 
  -products’ and bank’s security –as great as possible. 
A lot of banking products have become more and more attractive, diverse and easy to achieve for 
the past few years, thus being able to draw attention and maintain an important number of clients 
and to continuously grow the main financial performances (market share, turnover, profit).  
In spite of these, there are certain categories of clients (especially SMC and private individuals), 
reproaching  to  banks  several  products inadequacies  and  non-quality  towards  their  needs  and 
expectations. 
The main Romanian SMCs complaining about banking are as it follows: 
  -excessive banking bureaucracy (especially imposed by laws and regulations) –  useless 
nerves, time and money sources; 
  -credits excessively leveled costs (through too high interests and bank   commissions  – 
of analyzing, adjustment, risk, etc.- and many other taxes). The  ratio  interests/credits, 
interests/deposits is in our country of 4:6, comparing to only   2:3 for the UE partner states; 
  -required guarantee characteristics (mortgage, gage, blank cheques, collateral   deposits, 
bank guarantee letters, transfer of debts) especially the solicitation for the   guarantee  value 
to surpass the given credit’s value; 
  -too  small  duration  of  the  reimbursement  period  of  time  (1-5  years  compared  to  5-
  15 years for the UE partners states). 539 
 
SMCs in our country have had and still have low access, sometimes even impossible one, to 
credits, thus making difficult for the native products to properly develop. According to certain 
studies, only 10% of the Romanian SMCs are „bank proof” and can afford to achieve a credit 
from any bank, any time. 
As for the private clients main claims, they refer to the fact that the present products offer does 
not suit to ALL their needs, demands and expectations. Taking by example, the communication 
approach to real and potential clients (through mass media, websites, e-mails) all data thus being 
partially transmitted in a truthful, accessible and useful way.  
Banks should be aware of the fact that their offers’ flexibility, variety and congeniality are but a 
few of the advantages which attract the private clients and can make them permanent ones. 
Clients are more and more choosing their bank on the criteria of the relationships established 
with the bank’s personnel. But, there are unfortunately many situations in which clients are not at 
all satisfied with the staff’s attitude, especially because of the too big period of problems’ waiting 
to be solved time.  
Public receiving programs, welcoming clients system inside the bank together with the wicket’s 
schedule,  are  other  public’s  discontents.  They  think  it  very  normal  for  the  bank  to  have  an 
efficient  flexible  public  receiving  program,  an  inner  orientation  system  and  a  certain 
accommodation. 
There  appear  to  be  serious  differences  between  the  client’s  „expected  quality”  and  „  the 
perceived one”, after the acquisition of a banking product. There are also multiple causes for this 
situation, but the major one stands in the precarious interest manifested by many banks towards 
private  clients  (retail-banking)  and  their  focusing  upon  certain  artificial  clients  (corporate-
banking) – who regularly undertake bigger and faster profits. 
There are relatively recent items regarding banking area quality management (the start has been 
issued within the years 80s of the 20th century), but researches for constant improvement  have 
proved their importance, especially for the developed states.  For example, north-american and 
west- european banks have continuously worked for their clients’ support and the performance of 
their needs ( also by constant evaluation of their contentment). 
The adjusted number of the banks lead to an increasing competition and to the market banking 
services’ awareness, in order for the „ desired quality/issued by the bank” together with the one 
perceived by the client, to be both taken into account. 
Quality management banking perspective is extremely interesting, from the point of view of the 
activities specific, and of the permanent area competition improvement. Banks being aware of the 
quality problems also lead to the appearance and requirement of some area working standards. 
Standards imposing and issuing together with the performance measure system are to be the main 
elements of a quality program. 
The  need  of  having  such  a  program  is  being  emphasized  in  case  of  competition,  banks 
establishing certain standards by themselves, as it is considered to be much more important to 
continuously  evaluate  clients’  perception  of  the  provided  products  and  to  measure  their 
expectations and needs degree. 
The  initializing  and  maintenance  of  certain  operations  within  the  bank,  and  their  permanent 
comparison to benchmarking, are to reach some goals for the quality area. A certain bank’s 
objectives, strategies and policies are main quality factors for the specific bank. 
Clients’ perception can greatly be improved by using a very efficient marketing and by sustained 
interest for quality improvement, their needs and requirements satisfaction. A client should be 
given the impression he is the most important, in order for him to be willing to attend the specific 
bank’s services. It is considered to be much more expensive for a bank to attract new clients, than 
to keep the old ones, so all banks should try by any possible mean to improve clients public 
department. 540 
 
Still, there is not considered to be a priority for most of the east-european banks, to work upon a 
quality  management  system.  There  are  but  4  banks  in  Romania  at  the  moment,  which 
implemented under license a quality management system in accordance to family international 
standards  ISO  9000:  Romanian  National  Bank  (  meaning  only  the  Informatics  Services 
Department), Citi Bank Romania, Romanian Commercial Bank, EXIMBANK. As for all the 
other banks, they seem not to perceive the advantages offered by a quality system management 
and, as long as there is not imposed to them by a certain BNR regulation, they will continue to 
develop their activity the same way they used to do it. 
Taking into account the increasing competition between commercial Romanian banks, there is a 
real problem to come up with new clients or to preserve the old ones. The only possible way to 
face this situation is to encourage potential or real clients confidence into services or products 
quality offered by a certain bank. Furthermore, because of the clients requirements continuous 
increasing,  publicity  is  no  longer  reliable  but  in  case  of  multicriteria,  competent,  objective 
evaluations of the banking services and products. 
Thus being said, a bank’s departments and different services added value becomes more and 
more important for the client (simultaneously created together with the one intended for other 
interests partners). It is to notice that each partner’s shares for an added value should equally be 
established  (also  by  negotiation),  constantly  being  evaluated.  Neglecting  a  partner  for  some 
other’s interest is considered to be a non-productive behavior which tends to turn for the worst 
the long term business. 
In conclusion, banks should, in a very near future, more and more turn their interest towards the 
client, as it is well-known the clients trend to own full financial services packages which are 
already put in practice by many banks. The competition  will develop new products and services 
for these clients, especially in order to capture the „retail banking” market.  
 
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Competition and concentration in the banking sector of the South Eastern European region - Emerging

Competition and concentration in the EU banking industry.

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Testing for monopoly equilibrium.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN BANKING SYSTEM

http://steconomice.uoradea.ro/anale/volume/2009/v3-finances-banks-and-accountancy/90.pdf

QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN BANKING SYSTEM

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