How do banks make money? the fallacies of fee income

Abstract

In the first of two articles in this issue, the authors document the increasing importance of noninterest income at U.S. commercial banking companies and address two fundamental misunderstandings regarding this trend: the belief that fee-based activities provide more stable earnings than interest-based income and the belief that fee income flows chiefly from nontraditional, nonbanking activities.Income ; Money ; Payment systems