ASA University Review, Vol. 4 No. 1, January–June, 2010

Measuring Service Quality: A Comparative Analysis Between Standard Chartered Bank and Dhaka Bank
Mohd. Takdir Hossan* Abstract
This study compares the quality of services provided by Standard Chartered Bank and Dhaka Bank Ltd in Bangladesh. The premise of the paper is that the quality of bank’s services would be contingent on the incentive structure under which these institutions operate. Since banks are not subsidized and depend on income from clients, they would be more motivated to provide quality services to clients to meet their needs more effectively and efficiently. This premise was supported. Customers’ perception of service quality and key demographic characteristics were also used to predict choice of banks.

Key Words: Customers Expectation, Perception and Satisfaction Introduction The Jews in Jerusalem introduced a kind of banking in the form of money lending before the birth of Jesus Christ. The word 'bank' was probably derived from the word 'bench' as during ancient time Jews used to do money-lending business sitting on long benches. First modern banking was introduced in 1668 in Stockholm as 'Svingss Pis Bank' that opened up a new era of banking activities throughout the European mainland. In the South Asian region, early banking system was introduced by the Afghan traders popularly known as Kabuliwallas. Muslim businessmen from Kabul, Afghanistan, came to India and started money lending business in exchange of interest sometime in 1312 A.D. The importance of financial intermediaries in the development of the overall economy of the country cannot be described in short. From the inception of the civilization, the banking sector dominates the economic development of a country by mobilizing the saving from the general people and channeling those saving for investment and thus economic