The aggregate efficiency ratio for commercial banks in 2004 was 61.7 percent, meaning that banks needed to spend roughly 62 cents to generate each dollar of revenue. That full-year 2004 ratio was fully 3.5 percentage points lower than it was ten years ago in 1994.
Community banks today Although the number of banks in the United States has declined dramatically, as a general proposition we still have more commercial banks than other developed countries. The large number of banks in this country is neither an accident nor a vestige of a time before  3/6  telephones or the internet allowed businesses to overcome geographic distances.