Sustainable banking; Evaluation of the European business models

Abstract

Sustainability has become one of the challenges of today's banks. Since sustainable business models are responsible for the environment and society along with generating economic benefits, they are an attractive approach to sustainability. Sustainable business models also offer banks competitive advantages such as increasing brand reputation and cost reduction. However, no framework is presented to evaluate the sustainability of banking business models. To bridge this theoretical gap, the current study using A Delphi-Analytic Hierarchy Process method, firstly, developed a sustainable business model to evaluate the sustainability of the business model of banks. In the second step, the sustainability performance of sixteen banks from eight European countries including Norway, The UK, Poland, Hungary, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, assessed. The proposed business model components of this study were ranked in terms of their impact on achieving sustainability goals. Consequently, the proposed model components of this study, based on their impact on sustainability, are respectively value proposition, core competencies, financial aspects, business processes, target customers, resources, technology, customer interface, and partner network. The results of the comparison of the banks studied by each country disclosed that the sustainability of the Norwegian and German banks' business models is higher than in other counties. The studied banks of Hungary and Spain came in second, the banks of The UK, Poland, and France ranked third, and finally, the Italian banks ranked fourth in the sustainability of their business models.