Customers as a Cost Object

Morrisom National Bank has requested an analysis of checking account profitability by customer type. Customers are categorized according to the size of their account: low balances, medium balances, and high balances. The activities associated with the three different customer categories and their associated annual costs are as follows:

Opening and closing accounts	$300,000
Issuing monthly statements	450,000
Processing transactions	3,075,000
Customer inquiries	600,000
Providing automatic teller machine (ATM) services	1,680,000
Total cost	$6,105,000

Additional data concerning the usage of the activities by the various customers are also provided:

	Account Balance
	Low	Medium	High
Number of accounts opened/closed	22,500	4,500	3,000
Number of statements issued	675,000	150,000	75,000
Processing transactions	27,000,000	3,000,000	750,000
Number of telephone minutes	1,500,000	900,000	600,000
Number of ATM transactions	2,025,000	300,000	75,000
Number of checking accounts	57,000	12,000	6,000

Required:

1. Calculate a cost per account per year by dividing the total cost of processing and maintaining checking accounts by the total number of accounts. Round your answer to the nearest cent.

What is the average fee per month that the bank should charge to cover the costs incurred because of checking accounts? Round your answer to the nearest cent.

2. Calculate a cost per account by customer category by using activity rates. Round your answers to the nearest cent.

	Cost Per Account
Low
Medium
High

3. Currently, the bank offers free checking to all of its customers. The interest revenues average $90 per account; however, the interest revenues earned per account by category are $80, $100, and $165 for the low-, medium-, and high-balance accounts, respectively. Calculate the average profit per account (average revenue minus average cost from Requirement 1). Round your answer to the nearest cent.

Also calculate the profit per account by using the revenue per customer type and the unit cost per customer type calculated in Requirement 2. Round to the nearest cent. Use the minus sign to indicate a loss.

4. After the analysis in Requirement 3, a vice president recommended eliminating the free checking feature for low-balance customers. The bank president expressed reluctance to do so, arguing that the low-balance customers more than made up for the loss through cross-sales. He presented a survey that showed that 50% of the customers would switch banks if a checking fee were imposed. Explain how you could verify the presidents argument by using ABC.

First, calculate the profits from loans, credit cards, and other products by customer category (using ABC data). Next, compare 50% of the cross-sales profits from low-balance customers with the total loss from the low-balance checking accounts. If the cross-sales profits are greater than the loss, the presidents argument has merit.