Background and problem: The background of the study concerns the prevailing low degree of trust in the banking industry. Banks have historically, during different crisis, lost the trust from the general public since banks have been involved in these crises. Trust is vital in the banking industry and is a prerequisite in maintaining a stable financial system. It is therefore an issue that the trust in banks is currently record low. Therefore, the problem investigated is how banks build trust in their work.
Purpose and method: The study aims to explain how banks build trust towards large corporate customers. The explicit contribution from this study is to complete studies that focus on the customers’ perspective with an analysis from the perspective of bankers. Our study was executed with a qualitative method and with semi-structured interviews with bankers from several banks in Sweden.
Empiricism: The empirical result has shown that banks have several working routines in common in building trust. The result indicated that the working routines of banks were divided into four main areas that are, competence, integrity, benevolence and transparency. Banks work with these main areas to build trust toward their corporate customers.
Analysis: The analysis showed several similarities of how banks work in building trust. These similarities have enabled to answer the purpose and the background of the study.
Conclusion: The main conclusion in the study is that transparency impregnates the working routines of how banks build trust towards their large corporate customers. This indicates that banks focus on being clear and open in their interaction with corporate customers to win their trust.