Paper short abstract:

Ethical behaviour of Nigerian commercial banks salespersons are key to building connections and trust between banks and customers. This study empirically finds unethical sales behaviour in banks which could result in a breach of trust, contesting bank legitimacy thereby causing economic disruption.

Paper long abstract:

Accountability, transparency and responsibility are the key pillars that grant legitimacy to any financial institution. They are often contested when unethical behaviour is used to achieve sales objectives. The study explores the unethical behaviour of salespersons in Nigerian commercial banks through the lens of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria professional code of conduct.

The study employed quantitative analysis in arriving at conclusions. A total of 13,899,488 banks customers visited by salespersons constitute the population, while 357 purposively selected banks customers formed the sample size for questionnaire administration.

The study revealed that customers perceive that salespersons usually disclose needed information and do not influence their action with gifts. The customers also believe that unethical sales behaviour that exists in Nigerian banks include bank product price discrimination, breach of a promise made and that they often take advantage of the customer if they have the opportunity. The unethical sales behaviour may cause economic disruption and create connection problems between customers and their banks.

The issues identified in this paper are critical because for Nigeria to align itself with the World Bank goal of reducing world poverty by 2030, it cannot afford to allow people lose faith in the banking sector, which is one of the engine room for economic development, neither can it allow erring banks to keep defrauding the poor of their hard earn income through unethical banking behaviour. It is, therefore, recommended that the Central Bank of Nigeria take action toward curbing such unethical banking behavior