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Could you please explain me what does it mean when banks refer to "Sales Frontend"?
I have heard the term in sentences like "We need to improve our sales frontend in order to stay ahead in competition." Do they mean customer services provided by the bank from front office?
I think "sales frontend" means employees who are assigned to talk to (potential) customers. In the case of a bank, that would be people at bank branches (for example, loan officers). "Sales backend", by contrast, would be all the people who handle a sales transaction after a customer has (at least tentatively) committed to a purchase. (Take a look at this web page for an example, though not in the banking industry, of the term "front-end" in a sales context.)
So the sentence "We need to improve our sales frontend in order to stay ahead in competition" could be translated as "We need to hire more people because we're not getting enough inquiries about our products." (I suppose it could also mean "We need to spend more money on advertising", but I suspect that has a separate jargon of its own.) Or "We need to train our people at the branch banks to do a better job of convincing customers to buy our products."
Depends on the context, but it's most likely shorthand for front-end load:
Often associated with class 'A' shares of a mutual fund. Also known as Sales Charge, this is a fee paid when shares are purchased. Also known as a "front-end load," this fee typically goes to the brokers that sell the fund's shares. Front-end loads reduce the amount of your investment. For example, let's say you have $1,000 and want to invest it in a mutual fund with a 5% front-end load. The $50 sales load you must pay comes off the top, and the remaining $950 will be invested in the fund. The Maximum sales load under the Investment Company Act of 1940 is 9%. The maximum sales load under NASD Rules is 8 1/2%.
This is essentially up front commission. There's also back end load, which is taken when you divest from the fund. Ideally, banks and funds compete to bring sales loads down.
