Financial services are inherently intangible and high on experience and credence qualities. In order to promote them effectively, a service provider must first identify the dimensions used by consumer to evaluate the service quality of banks prior to becoming a customer. Based on responses from customer, the current study identifies four dimensions - reliability, responsiveness, assurance and tangibles - which form the domain of customer's evaluation of search quality in the financial services industry. Further, the relationship betw^een these service quality factors and overall assessment of customer's bank is investigated. The important discriminant service quality factors among the public sector, private sector and co-operative banks are also examined. The results indicate that the customer's perception on the service quality factors in private sector banks are higher than in the public sector and co-operative banks. The significantly influencing service quality factors on the overall attitude towards retail banking are the reliability and assurance. The most important discriminant service quality factor among private and public sector bank is 'responsiveness' whereas among the public sector and co-operative banks, it is 'tangibles'. In the case of private and co-operative banks, the important discriminant service quality factors are reliability and responsiveness. These findings suggest that bank managers should be cognizant of service quality factors and their relations with the appropriate contingent variables.