Determinants of sales misconduct in Indian retail banking services

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate those factors which are responsible for the sales misconduct in Retail banking services across the world and try to find out the determinants which majorly affect the Indian Retail banking industry. The authors also try to find out whether the sales approach leads to malpractices in sales and how does it affect the different categories of the customers. Design/methodology/approach - Primary data have been collected from the bank account holders having account in various private and public sector banks operating in India. Findings - The authors have come out with finding that sales misconduct is majorly affected by misrepresentation of facts, complexity of products, lack of disclosure norms and more. They also found that push sales approach is adopted by banks, particularly by private banks to majorly tap the class customers to sell the financial products without their requirement and achieve the revenue targets. Practical implications - Banking regulators can keep a close supervision on sales mal practices in banking sector and implement stringent norms to reduce these kinds of practices. Originality/value - Very few studies have been conducted on the basis of the class of the customer, and how sales approach leads the malpractices in sales and how it affects the class of the customers.