Abstract

Purpose: the essay focuses on some important instruments and measures supporting the desired actual (and not just declared) ethical behavior in banking practices.

Methodology: the essay first used a combination of comparisons to show similarities and differences between 10 banking codes of ethics in EU countries. Then qualitative analysis of indicators and scales assigned to bank rankings was also used to identify some possibilities to promote the ethical behavior of banks in more efficient ways.

Findings: ethical behaviors in the banks, despite a high awareness of moral norms, are largely declarative rather than actual. In order to approximate the actual behaviors to the declared ones, further improvements need to be introduced in the methods and instruments of education (codes of ethics, bank rankings), along with encouraging the implementation of management practices consistent with ethical behavior. This should start with redefinition of the functioning of the bank, i.e. broadening the task of achieving ambitious outcomes by adding respect for ethical standards.

Practical Implications: not every instrument of ethics education can be treated as directly useful in the process of training actual ethical behavior in banks. Some particular conditions must be taken into account that it should fulfill.

Originality: the author has distinguished three levels in business ethics education: ethical awareness and ethically oriented behaviors, both declared and actual. The essay described the necessary conditions for utilization of some educational instruments of ethics in the process of implementing actual ethical behaviors in the banks.. Such an approach has not been found previously in the subject literature.

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