The competitiveness of retail banking leading to the adoption of continuous improvement teamworking

Banks within the industry and from outside are under increasing competition (Gandy and Chapman, 1997).Under the new financial reforms brought about by the Australian government through the Financial Services Reform Act (FSRA) in 1998, there has been an increase in competitiveness of the Australian Banking institutions. Deregulation is redefining a new form of competitive and sophisticated banking sector (Battelino, 2002; Hutley and Russel, 2005). Over the last decade, the impact of regulation on the banking and financial services industry in Australia had many implications for banking top management team and future policy makers. With this specialization of the financial system and strong growth of the financial markets, Australian major banking organizations are striving against each other for the desire to become number one. The banking and financial services industry has been moving towards continuous improvement to improve customer service, increase performance and profitability (Battelino, 2002; Duncan and Elliot, 2002; Hutley and Russel, 2002; West, Tjosvold and Smith, 2005).