The goal of this study is to identify the interrelationships between service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the retail banking sector in Hong Kong. The study also aims to find out the most important attributes of service quality in retail banks, which can be used to evaluate the characteristics of banking service quality as perceived by customers. A sample of 119 retail banking customers was drawn from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) in Hong Kong. The questionnaire developed for this study was based on a SERVQUAL model that identified the influence of five dimensions (i.e. tangibility, responsibility, reliability, assurance and empathy) in banking service environments on customer satisfaction. The results indicate that the five SERVQUAL dimensions have a positive influence on customer satisfaction. Tangibility, responsibility, reliability and assurance were more significant in contributing to customer satisfaction, while empathy was the least significant. This study suggests that SERVQUAL is a suitable instrument for measuring service quality in the retail banking sectors in Hong Kong. Hence, banking industry practitioners can consider this instrument as a tool to assess and help improve their service quality.