Remembering that bankers find it difficult to fix rates of interest, these being established largely on a competitive basis, the importance of carefully watching the cost in the bank is evident. The banker's income is fairly well established, and while he can increase it in some particulars through excellent management and by taking advantage of varying rates of interest in varying communities, his principal avenue of success is found in increasing his volume of business. This, however, is beneficial only if he keeps his costs down. Banking profit is thus essentially a problem of cost analysis.

All this is of interest to the banker, but its interest to the business man who is a customer of the bank may not be so clear. The business man, however, finds that the banker's regulations and requirements result in throwing upon him various items of cost which he had not reckoned upon. For instance, if the banker insists that he shall draw only against collected funds, the business man is practically obliged to require of his customers payment in a certain kind of exchange, or else to reconcile himself to the loss of interest on the funds, or, in order to offset this increase, his price is raised correspondingly for his goods. He thus soon learns to bring himself into harmony with the requirements of good banking in order to reduce his own costs.