Le rôle de la relation de clientèle comme barrière à l'entrée sur les marchés bancaires

This paper aims at providing theoretical foundations to the role of customer relationship as a strategic barrier to entry on banking markets. A bank which grants a loan to a customer gains a comparative advantage in information on this customer as compared with competitors. This informational asymmetry gives to the bank a monopoly power on its customers: customer relationship acts as a ?switching cost?? for the borrowers. We elaborate a model of strategic barriers to entry in which customer relationship allows the incumbent bank to prevent the entry of a more efficient bank. Classification JEL : D43, G21, L14