Share of wallet's role in customer profitability

Understanding the financial contribution customers make to their organisations is an initial step in customer relationship management. Set in the banking industry, this paper examines the strength of ‘share of wallet’ as a proxy variable for measuring customer profitability. Data from a study of 1,100 personal retail banking customers of a New Zealand regional bank were used in combination with the bank's own customer contribution data for each of those respondents. Results indicate that although share of wallet might be used as a proxy for customer contribution at a macro level of customer classification, details of specific financial relationships customers have with their main bank are still necessary. Nevertheless, share of wallet ought to become a standard entry in a bank's customer database.