Achieving Excellence in Retail Banking highlights the key tasks and priorities that nine banks, which emerged at the top of the industry between 1998 and 2001, embraced on their way to world-class results. Topping the list is the effort by senior executives to build a strong performance culture and a world-class sales function. These capabilities in turn created a service culture that clearly distinguished these banks from competitors. Of course, many banks pursue similar initiatives; the question is whether their aspirations are high enough.

You can learn about the key highlights from the book by reading the topic summaries.

Over the past two years, McKinsey & Company's Retail Banking Practice has invested heavily in a major research effort to identify best practices around the world, the drivers of excellence and the winning concepts in retail banking for the years to come. We analyzed in depth almost 100 retail banks, to identify outstanding performers and best practice methods.

Our research is unique for two key reasons: its scope is particularly broad since it covers quantitative and organizational factors along all competencies required for success in retail banking and for the first time, we compare like for like retail banking economic indicators for such a large number of banks.

We adjusted economic indicators such as cost to income ratios with the most statistically significant country-specific factors, i.e. price levels, wage levels, personal financial assets and loans per capita.

The culmination of this effort is our new book: Achieving Excellence in Retail Banking. We feel that its timing could hardly be better as the banking stars of yesterday – such as investment banking – have lost their luster, and banks are turning their attention once again to the retail business.