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The purpose of this study is to explore the nature of firm–bank exchange. Using a qualitative research method and existing theory, by capturing transaction-based and relationship-based elements, I examine ten firms and eight different bank services important for the exchange between the firms and their banks. The study indicates that the exchange is more complex than previous theories have proclaimed, since the nature of the exchange differs when central elements of different bank services are compared. There are bank services, such as bank account and loans, which have a high degree of both transaction-based and relationship-based elements. Saving and investment are also indicated as consisting of both transaction-based and relationship-based elements. Other services, such as depositing of cash, digital depositing and payments clearly have a higher proportion of transaction-based elements than of relationship-based elements, but depositing of cash differs somewhat from digital depositing regarding some of the elements investigated. The study suggests that advising has a high level of relationship-based elements, while the transaction-based elements are much less evident. For the service exchange of money, both transaction-based and relationship-based elements are present at a level below medium. In total this demonstrates that the firm–bank exchange has a multidimensional nature.

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.

This study explores how institutional demands influence banking, with a focus on the implementation of a regulatory initiative named KRITA, where the regulator (the Swedish Riksbank) requires more granular credit information from banks. This is a mirror of the ECB regulation called AnaCredit. The study departs from an institutional perspective (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) and applies insights toaccounting information to understand how institutional demands of ‘hard’ [digitisable] credit information influence banking. To better understand how KRITA influences banking, a leading bankwith an autonomous branch office network, recognised for low credit losses and excellence in credit assessment, was selected as a case bank. The study builds on interviews with bank personnel,representatives of the Swedish Bankers’ Association, regulators and industry experts, together with retrieved documentation of the institutional demands that has been formed during negotiations between the banks and the regulator in order to enforce the implementation of the KRITA regulation.The study shows that banks responded to the regulatory initiative before it was adopted. The KRITA regulation demands reporting of credit information that needs to be digitisable. Specifically, the regulatory initiative directs more attention to digitisable hard information and no attention to nondigitisable soft information. As a result of the uncertainties, tensions arise between the regulator and the regulated.The study also demonstrates the importance of qualitative information and tacit knowledge for the regulated bank, and the regulatory framework omits important credit information. Moreover, the study demonstrates that the KRITA regulation is a game changer of reporting for the bank, and a central effect of the KRITA regulation is that it forces banks to make IT-investments in order to be able to comply with the regulation when it come into effect. The study contributes to literature on institutional demands (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Elliot and Cäker, 2017).The study is a unique case of the KRITA regulation and how KRITA influences banks. In addition to other studies on how institutional demands, i.e. bank regulations, influence organisations and accounting practices (Crawford, 2017; Überbacher and Scherer, 2020), this study shows that even a regulatory initiative such as KRITA influences the bank, even prior to the regulation being adopted and coming into effect

Financial robo-advising and knowledge on how regulatory initiatives influence organisations are two areas that are not very well understood. We know that institutional demands, such as regulations, can influence organisations, as discussed by DiMaggio and Powell (1983), but there is a dearth of research on how. In particular, how regulatory initiatives related to a new emerging phenomenon, such as financial robo-advising, influence organisations. Even before specific regulations have been adopted, regulatory initiatives manifested in texts can influence organisations (see Cooren, 2004; Fairclough, 1992; Phillips et al., 2004; Vaara et al., 2010). The purpose of this paper is to study how institutional demands, manifested as regulatory initiatives, influence financial robo-advising. To do so, I conducted a qualitative study where I critically analysed potential effects, based on four regulatory texts on financial robo-advising. These texts include regulatory documents by the financial regulatory bodies in Sweden and in EU that have been produced on this topic. The study finds that a new technology such as financial robo-advising is strongly influenced by the regulatory discourse and how both financial advising and financial robo-advising are defined. I show how the new form of financial advising, including financial robo-advising, comes into being, by the interplay of text and talks between the regulator and involved stakeholders. The study also finds that financial robo-advisors can be viewed as intermediators of hard information, even though the advice may not be interpreted or viewed as such.