ABSTRACT
To this stage we have analysed the nature of banking and suggested that it is most appropriately treated as the retailing of services, contrary to the more popular views that banking is either an application of the theory of production or of the theory of portfolio selection. It is by no means denied that these latter two theories may provide insights into certain aspects of banking operations, but there are a number of common characteristics of bank operations that fit very insecurely within either of those frameworks and it is felt that this justifies investigating alternative descriptions of banking.
