Wallet share

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED 2026-11-06

// THE SHORT ANSWER

Wallet share is the portion of a client's total spending on banking (interest, fees, payments, foreign exchange and hedging, across every bank it uses) that one bank earns. A client spending US$2 million a year, of which US$300,000 goes to the bank providing half its debt, gives that bank a 15% share. Relationship teams estimate the wallet from the client's accounts and what they can see of its other banks, and set the share against the balance sheet committed, because a large loan that earns little else is often priced below target in the hope of more business.

BASIS  Practitioner judgment from sixteen years in commercial banking, set out in How Bankers Think (Highbank Press, 2026). Every borrower on this site is a composite constructed for teaching, not a client. The market is mid-market commercial lending as practised in New Zealand and Australia; where a convention differs elsewhere, the page says so.