OBJECTIVE: Find all dormant checking accounts. On average, a dormant checking account cost anywhere from $50 - $150 per year to maintain. That means that an institution with 2,300 dormant accounts may lose as much as $345,000 per year supporting dormant accounts.  Identifying such accounts and implementing some simple tactics can improve your bottom line quickly. 

In this query, two data points are examined:

• average number of monthly checking transactions

• average checking balance

The Transactions_Monthly Avg field shows the annualized average total number of checking transactions per month.  It includes all teller, checks, ATM, POS, AVRU, PC Banking, ACH and call-center transactions. The period of dormancy is one year unless you are using less than 12 months worth of activity data.  In that case the dormancy period equals the number of months of data available (six months at a minimum).  The query also checks the account's average balance to see if it is $100 or less.  This query should be run at the Account level:

1,106 dormant checking accounts were found using the query shown above:

IDEAS: Understanding the huge costs that dormant checking accounts represent, it makes solid fiscal sense to reduce these as much as possible. Consider some of the following tactics:

• Cash or other value incentive for signing up for direct payroll deposit. This can convert a dormant account into a strong checking relationship. Using the micro-marketing aspects that iNTEGRATOR makes possible, Age could be used to select dormant checking accounts for 18 - 34 year olds. This allows you to tailor an appropriate incentive to the age group... in this case the incentive might be free pizzas from a popular pizza chain:
  
  
  

• Offer to buy back their checks from another institution.

• Examine the other aspects of the relationship (loans, savings, etc.) and determine if closing the account makes sense. If it is a very low balance account (< $100) and has had no activity for an extended period, you may wish to impose a "dormancy" fee. This can be done through a letter which also introduces them to other products -- so it acts as both a warning and marketing vehicle. Worst case, the account holder closes the account and reduces your costs. Best case, they use the account, or change the account to something that better fits their needs.

CAVEATS: Be sure to look into the accounts that are returned.  Not all dormant accounts should be treated the same way; you don't want to risk alienating highly profitable households who have a dormant account.  Or the attorney who likes to deposit trust or escrow funds into checking accounts at your institution because your rates are good, and the funds are instantly accessible, for example.

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