Abstract

"On the Profit Policy of Banks"

Proceeding from the special situation of the German banks in the highinterest phase, the author examines the medium-run trend of profitability. It is shown that in the ranges of services offered, which are peculiar to the various groups of institutions and have evolved in the course of long development processes, an in their consequences the group-typical forms of supply and price policy in conjunction with changed market shares, changed clientele structure and changed taxation of bank earnings have resulted in disparate development of the profitability situation of the institutional groups. Phenomena such as increasing "bank habituation" and the public's growing sensitivity to changes in the interest rate, whidi have given rise above all to marketing measures on the part of the banks themselves, play a special role in this connection.

In a second part the author investigates possibilities of applying bank price policy measures to compensate for profit policy measures. In this context he discusses thoroughly the aspects of abandonment of far-reaching freedom from charges (abandonment of excessive compensatory prices which are detrimental to the lending business).

In conclusion the limited possibilities of reorganizing and enriching the assortment of bank services with the object of improving profitability are ventilated.