ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the MiFID II regulation and its new and long-ranging demands concerning product-governance requirements. It draws that most products and services offered by banks comprise a mixture of transaction-based and relationship-based exchange, something that entails a more complex reality than is often described in the regulations. The chapter discusses elements of relationship-based exchange as being connected to elements that are traditionally related to a differentiation strategy, meaning the strategy to offer unique service characteristics, such as the use of soft information, personal contacts, trust, and a long-termness on the exchange. It focuses theoretically on two different forms of what we conceptualize as rationalities, that is, ways of thinking: One that exists in the external environment of an organization and another that exists within the organization. However, by studying the underlying rationalities of regulators, on the one hand, and the real-life contexts of the firm–bank exchange, on the other, some important questions can be raised.
