Contribution Margin – a Model of Performance Evaluation of Banks’ Profit Centers

My reason for embarking upon this project lies first and foremost in the fact that my responsibilities in the bank are inextricably bound to the concerns of managing the bank’s operating performance; more specifically, to the planning and control of the performance of various responsibility centers within it to the end of meeting target objectives. I found a further impetus in my involvement in the current process of the bank’s reorganization which is aimed at aligning the bank’s structure to the organization standards valid in EU commercial banks. Such a massive-scale decentralization process has uncovered the need for introducing certain models of monitoring the bank’s responsibility centers. This paper serves a double purpose, namely, its topic coincides with the material I need to prepare for the exam which is part of the symposium in Pforzheim I participated in and also with the contents of the course on Managerial Accounting. Secondly, with this paper I am also meeting the seminar paper requirement at the ‘Management’ postgraduate program. This paper is divided in two major sections, which coincide with the two major angles from which I have looked at the topic at hand, namely, the theoretical angle and the practical one built on the example of Slavonska banka d.d. Osijek. In the theoretical part I have looked in some detail into the concept and meaning of responsibility accounting as well as into the issue of the establishment of responsibility centers (henceforth: RC) in commercial banks. The second part purports to shape and apply the model of managerial control of the contribution margin for performance evaluation of the bank’s profit centers (henceforth: PC). I would also like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to all of my colleagues postgraduates who have contributed in one way or another to the completion of this paper.