How do banks make money? A variety of business strategies
This is the second of two companion pieces on
“How do banks make money?” appearing in this issue
of Economic Perspectives. In the first article, we focus
on the remarkable increase in noninterest income
at U.S. commercial banks during the past two decades,
the regulatory and technological catalysts for this historic
change, and how this newfound reliance on noninterest
income can affect bank performance. In this
article, we explain how deregulation and technological
change have encouraged U.S. commercial banks
to become less like each other in virtually all aspects
of their operations—including the generation of noninterest
income—and how the resulting divergence in
banking strategies has affected the financial performance
of these companies. We define a variety of banking
business strategies based on differences in product mix,
funding sources, geographic focus, production techniques,
and other dimensions, and examine the financial
performance of established U.S. banking companies
that used these strategies from 1993 through 2003. While
we recognize that bank size can have implications for
strategic choice and financial performance, we do not
use bank size to define any of the strategy groups.