In the Polish market of financial services, where numerous institutions attempt to reduce costs, the quality improvement programs may be found to be the best solution to maintain or even increase profits. In such a market there are possibilities for an institution to gain the competitive advantage thanks to its reputation of rendering high quality services. However, both the quality and its lack cost a lot. The term 'quality costs' refers to the costs of activity that aim at achieving an adequate quality level - of introducing quality, and costs of mistakes - of the lack of quality.

To understand the costs of lacking quality it is crucial to become aware of effect multiplying the costs during the process of a new product development. Any mistake in designing a new product may bring minor consequences for an institution provided it is identified before the production process has begun. Thus, it is important that prevention is provided during initial design stages. If the costs of quality introduction increase the costs of mistakes should reduce resulting in consequence in savings.

In order to reduce costs it is important to have information on the improvement possibilities. The information may come from the bank's staff who meet on a daily basis with customers' dissatisfaction, conflict of competence, too long procedures, limitations of information technology systems and other problems affecting the quality of services offered. The staff commitment in the management process through the quality of organization may be of advantage in two aspects. First, the staff knows best what to improve - it is better to ask your own 'internal experts' than hire external consultants. Second, the staff, who is asked for help, feel that its job is important and that it shares the success of its institution. Thanks to that the staff is strongly bound with its place of work and motivated to take further actions.

The article attempts to answer the question whether the staff is a good source of information on the quality problems and related solutions. The paper is based on findings arising from the mini survey in which banks' staff was asked to suggest ideas to improve the quality in their institutions.

According to the staff, improvement is necessary, in particular, in the internal procedures. They are ineffective in the sense that they expose banks to costs that could be avoided, and affect provision of high quality services. Apart from the above mentioned internal procedures the staff point to the organization of work and the procedures related to servicing products, being the areas that still require a lot to be done. Moreover, the staff mentioned documentation, administrative and social improvements and customer servicing. Products were mentioned last. We can conclude from this sequence that, according to the staff, the institutions introduce new products in an adequate pace, however, internal regulations do not follow. A different interpretation is also possible - the staff focus rather too much on internal aspects instead of concentrating on customers. Since the number of respondents was too small we cannot give an explicit answer to the question posed. It is a beginning of further research. It must be admitted, however, that many of the ideas cited in the article are worth considering due to the creativity of staff and capability to go beyond the framework of its own jobs. The authors of the ideas are interested in their institutions' existing procedures, and can not only criticize but also suggest changes in order to improve their efficiency.