Use FCA to Benchmark
Your Success

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As you read in the last Payments Quarterly, the Federal Reserve's Functional Cost and Profit Analysis program (FCA) has provided financial institutions a fast, easy and inexpensive cost accounting method for 40 years. Recently revised, FCA is now available in two versions: FCA Basic and FCA Plus. Each version provides you with a different level of analysis, depending on your institution's needs and experience with FCA.

However, have you thought about using FCA for purposes other than cost accounting? FCA is a great tool for benchmarking your performance against that of your peers. By using data provided by the Fed, you can compare revenues and expenses with institutions of similar size and product lines. For example, FCA supplies the information necessary to determine if revenue for a particular product is in line with national and regional norms, or if costs are higher than average in any given functional area.

In addition, FCA enables you to follow your own performance over time by establishing a baseline for costs and profits, and then tracking those statistics over several years. To obtain this type of information and make these comparisons without FCA, you would need to survey banks, credit unions and other organizations across the country and spend a significant amount of time and resources compiling the data. With FCA, the Fed does this for you.

If you are interested in learning more about our FCA program, call Dan Horton in St. Louis at (314) 444-8629.