At the turn of the 20th century dynamic changes in retail banking and the resulting reorientation of approach towards customers are visible. Increased competitive pressure not only from financial institutions but also from non-financial entities (i.e. supermarkets, car producers) coupled with diminished loyalty of buyers has produced the situation when the main problem faced by banks nowadays is not only to win over customers but most of all to keep them. For this reason, actions focused on a single sale are substituted by an approach oriented at long-term, intensive and profitable relationship with financial service consumers, described as relationship marketing.

The paper consists of four parts. The first one describes transformations in bank strategies under growing saturation of markets and increasing competition. Then the marketing concept is described and two main ways of using it are presented. The first one is based on IT systems (the so-called Customer Relationship Management - CRM). The second one consists in personal contact of a bank account manager with a customer. Then the paper focuses on the use of the latter approach in the biggest Polish and German banks. The results of telephone survey of persons acting as account managers are presented. They point to significant differences in the way that respondents understand their role and use relationship marketing in both countries .