The need to be customer-focused to the highly changing marketing environment has never been more important for financial services institutions. However, under the present circumstances, where customers are becoming more demanding and increasingly mobile between competing financial providers, being customer-oriented is not enough. Financial services companies, and more specifically, their contact employees (e.g. salespeople) need to be perceived as ethical by their customers. This research represents an initial step in analysing the role of ethical sales behaviour, as perceived by bank customers, in developing and maintaining relationships with customers. The findings revealed that a salesperson’s ethical behaviour leads to higher customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty to the bank that the salesperson represents. Managerial and research implications are also discussed.