Balanced scorecard example

Balanced scorecard example for a regional bank

A bank's balanced scorecard translates its strategy into a small set of objectives and measures across four perspectives: financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth. It is owned by the chief executive and agreed with the board and the executives accountable for finance, the business lines, operations, risk and people.

This is the Banking version of the balanced scorecard examples.

Horizon: 3 years4 priorities · 12 outcomes

Use this template

What this balanced scorecard template includes

ContextThe situation, the challenges to solve, and what is deliberately left out.
Mission and strategy in briefThe purpose and strategy the scorecard is measuring.
Objectives by perspectiveOne or two objectives in each of the four perspectives.
Cause-and-effect linksHow objectives in one perspective drive results in the next.
Priorities and measuresThree to five priorities, each with an owner, outcomes with a baseline and target, and the initiatives behind them.

Worked example

A complete balanced scorecard for a fictional organization: regional bank with $36 billion in assets and 240 branches across five states.

Worked exampleBalanced scorecard

Organization	Regional bank with $36 billion in assets and 240 branches across five states (5,000 staff)
Ambition	Earn an 11% return on tangible common equity by FY29 by becoming the primary bank for more of the households and businesses we already serve.
Horizon	3 years

Context

Where we are and what we are choosing

The bank holds $26 billion in loans and $29 billion in deposits, and earned $246 million last year: a return on tangible common equity of 8.2%, below its cost of capital. Net interest margin is 2.85% because funding has become expensive. Noninterest-bearing balances fell from 31% to 21% of deposits, and $2.6 billion is brokered. Only 38% of our 620,000 households use us as their primary bank, and 44% of commercial borrowers keep their operating accounts with us. The efficiency ratio is 66%: 71% of accounts are still opened in a branch, and a commercial loan takes 47 days to close.

Challenges

We lend to customers who bank elsewhere. Loan-only relationships earn a thin spread and leave us funding growth with brokered and rate-sensitive deposits.
Cost is tied up in manual work: 240 branches handling routine transactions, paper-heavy loan closings, and nine audit and regulatory issues past their due date.
Relationship managers leave at 16% a year, and each departure puts a book of roughly $90 million in loans and deposits at risk.

We will focus on

Primary relationships: households with their pay and regular payments here, and commercial borrowers with their operating accounts here.
Funding mix before loan growth. Core deposits must grow faster than loans in each of the three years.
Twelve measures, three per perspective, each with one accountable executive.

We will not

An acquisition. Two smaller banks in the footprint are for sale, and integration would consume the teams that must fix onboarding and data.
Growing commercial real estate, already 41% of loans, to reach the earnings target sooner.
Paying promotional rates to buy deposits. Balances won on rate leave on rate.

Mission and strategy in brief

Mission	Help the households and businesses in our communities manage, borrow and grow their money, and remain a safe, independent bank they can rely on in any cycle.
Strategy in one sentence	Develop bankers and data that let us open, lend and serve faster and with fewer errors, so that more customers make us their primary bank, which brings the low-cost deposits that restore margin and return.

Objectives by perspective

Perspective	Objective	Why it matters
Financial	Earn a return above our cost of capital	A return on tangible common equity of 8.2% cannot support both the dividend and organic growth
Financial	Lower the cost of funding and of running the bank	Deposit cost and a 66% efficiency ratio are the two largest gaps to our peer group
Customer	Be the primary bank for more households	Primary households hold four times the deposits of the rest and leave a third as often
Customer	Hold the operating accounts of the businesses we lend to	56% of commercial borrowers keep their balances at another bank
Internal process	Open accounts and close loans quickly	Slow onboarding is the reason cited most in abandoned applications and lost commercial deals
Internal process	Close control issues on time	Past-due issues add remediation cost and limit what supervisors will approve
Learning and growth	Develop bankers who advise, on data they can trust	Advice depends on tenure and on one accurate view of each customer

Cause-and-effect links

Complete, verified customer records give bankers one view of each household and business, which makes a conversation about the whole relationship possible.
Relationship managers who stay keep their clients' operating accounts. A book that changes hands loses about a fifth of its deposits within a year.
Branch staff certified as universal bankers spend their time on advice and account opening as routine transactions move to digital channels.
Digital account opening and faster loan closings remove the delays that send customers' everyday banking elsewhere.
More primary households and operating accounts raise noninterest-bearing balances, which replace brokered funding and widen net interest margin.
Fewer manual steps and fewer overlapping branches lower the efficiency ratio, and control issues closed on time remove remediation spending. Both lift return on tangible common equity.

Priorities and measures

Priority 1Owner: Chief Financial Officer

Financial: earn a return above our cost of capital

At 8.2%, the return on tangible common equity does not cover the cost of capital. The gap is in funding cost and operating cost, not in loan volume.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Return on tangible common equityMilestones: 9% by FY27 · 10% by FY28	8.2%	11%	FY29
Efficiency ratioMilestones: 64.5% by FY27 · 62% by FY28	66%	60%	FY29
Net interest marginMilestones: 2.92% by FY27 · 3.03% by FY28	2.85%	3.15%	FY29

Initiatives

Let the $2.6 billion of brokered deposits run off as core deposits grow
Consolidate 35 branches that sit within three miles of another and reinvest a third of the savings in digital channels
Hold commercial real estate at or below 41% of loans and direct growth to commercial and industrial lending
Price deposits by depth of relationship, not by product promotion

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Priority 2Owner: Chief Banking Officer

Customer: be the primary bank for the customers we already have

Most of our households and commercial borrowers do their everyday banking somewhere else. Their operating balances are the low-cost funding the financial targets depend on.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Households using us as their primary bankMilestones: 41% by FY27 · 44.5% by FY28	38%	48%	FY29
Commercial borrowers with their operating accounts at the bankMilestones: 48% by FY27 · 53% by FY28	44%	58%	FY29
Noninterest-bearing balances as a share of depositsMilestones: 22.5% by FY27 · 24% by FY28	21%	26%	FY29

Initiatives

Build direct deposit switching into account opening and the mobile app
Require a treasury management proposal with every commercial credit approval above $1 million
Measure relationship managers on deposits and fee income alongside loan growth
Call every new household within 30 days to finish moving pay and regular payments

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Priority 3Owner: Chief Operating Officer

Internal process: make opening, lending and control work faster

Customers who wait six weeks for a loan or have to visit a branch to open an account keep their main bank. Overdue control issues absorb the same operations staff who should be fixing those processes.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Consumer and small business accounts opened digitallyMilestones: 38% by FY27 · 50% by FY28	29%	60%	FY29
Median time from commercial loan application to closingMilestones: 40 days by FY27 · 33 days by FY28	47 days	28 days	FY29
Audit and regulatory issues past their due dateMilestones: 3 issues by FY27	9 issues	0 issues	FY28

Initiatives

Rebuild digital account opening so identity checks, funding and card issue finish in one session
Move commercial loan documents and covenant tracking into one workflow from application to booking
Give every open issue a named executive owner and review the list at the monthly risk committee
Automate the 20 highest-volume back-office requests, starting with address changes and card disputes

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Priority 4Owner: Chief Human Resources Officer

Learning and growth: develop bankers who advise, on data they can trust

A primary relationship is won by a banker who knows the customer and can see everything the customer holds with us. Today turnover is high and 37% of customer records are incomplete or unverified.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Relationship manager turnoverMilestones: 13.5% by FY27 · 11% by FY28	16%	9%	FY29
Branch staff certified as universal bankersMilestones: 45% by FY27 · 65% by FY28	22%	80%	FY29
Customer records complete and verifiedMilestones: 75% by FY27 · 87% by FY28	63%	95%	FY29

Initiatives

Run a two-year commercial banker development program that takes 30 analysts a year
Certify branch staff in account opening, lending basics and digital servicing, with a pay step for each
Appoint data owners for customer, account and collateral records, with the chief data officer publishing a monthly quality score
Change relationship manager incentives so that they vest over three years

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Blank balanced scorecard template

The same structure with a prompt in every field. Copy it, or download it as a Word or Excel file.

Your planBalanced scorecard

Organization	[Describe your organization in a few words, with its size]
Ambition	[One sentence on where you want to be at the end of the plan]
Horizon	[How long the plan runs, for example 12 months]

Context

Where we are and what we are choosing

[Where things stand today: the facts that make this strategy necessary]

Challenges

[A problem the strategy has to solve]
[A problem the strategy has to solve]

We will focus on

[Something you are choosing to concentrate on]
[Something you are choosing to concentrate on]

We will not

[Something you are deliberately leaving out]
[Something you are deliberately leaving out]

Mission and strategy in brief

Mission	[Your mission]
Strategy in one sentence	[Your strategy in one sentence]

Objectives by perspective

Perspective	Objective	Why it matters
[Perspective]	[Objective]	[Why it matters]
[Perspective]	[Objective]	[Why it matters]
[Perspective]	[Objective]	[Why it matters]

Cause-and-effect links

[A link from one objective to the result it enables]
[A link from one objective to the result it enables]
[A link from one objective to the result it enables]

Priorities and measures

Priority 1Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

Priority 2Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

Priority 3Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

Priority 4Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

How to adapt it

01
Write the bank's strategy as one sentence that runs from people and systems to customers to funding and return. If it only names a financial target, the scorecard will have nothing to link.
02
Choose financial measures the board already sees, such as return on tangible common equity, efficiency ratio and net interest margin, and limit them to three.
03
Define a primary relationship precisely for consumer and for commercial customers, then check the definition can be calculated from the core system every month.
04
Put control and regulatory measures in the internal process perspective with a named owner, not in a separate risk report that nobody links to strategy.
05
For each measure, record the baseline and where the data comes from before setting targets. Bank scorecards stall most often on customer data quality.
06
Cascade to business lines by asking each for its contribution to the same twelve measures, not for a new list.

How to run it

A plan only works if it is reviewed on a rhythm. This is the cadence the example assumes.

Check-in	Outcome owners update progress and confidence weekly.
Review	Priority owners review outcomes and unblock initiatives monthly.
Reset	Leadership revisits priorities and targets quarterly.

Tability keeps this cadence for you. Each priority becomes an objective, each outcome a key result with its baseline and target, and each initiative a tracked task. Owners get a check-in reminder and the plan shows what is on track.

Track this plan in Tability

Still comparing tools? See the 10 best strategy software tools.

Common mistakes

Filling the financial perspective with ten ratios. The board pack already has them; the scorecard needs the two or three the strategy is meant to move.
Using satisfaction scores as the only customer measure. Primary relationship share and deposit mix show whether customers act on what they say.
Leaving risk and control out because they are reported elsewhere, then finding that remediation work consumes the capacity the scorecard assumed.
Setting loan growth targets in one perspective and funding targets in another without checking that they can both be met.

Questions, answered.

What does a balanced scorecard for a bank look like?

It has four perspectives with two or three objectives in each. Financial covers return, margin and cost. Customer covers primary relationships and deposit mix. Internal process covers onboarding, lending turnaround and control. Learning and growth covers banker retention, skills and data. Each objective has a measure, a baseline, a target and one accountable executive.

Which KPIs go in a bank's balanced scorecard?

Common choices are return on tangible common equity, efficiency ratio and net interest margin; share of customers who use the bank as their primary bank and noninterest-bearing deposit share; digital account opening rate, loan closing time and overdue control issues; and relationship manager turnover, staff certification and customer data quality. Keep the total to about twelve.

Where do risk and compliance measures sit on a bank scorecard?

Most banks place them in the internal process perspective, as measures such as overdue audit issues, control test pass rates or losses from operational errors. Some add a fifth perspective for risk. Either works, provided the measures have an owner and are linked to the objectives they protect, not reported in isolation.

How often should a bank review its balanced scorecard?

Update the measures as results arrive, review them monthly at the executive committee and take them to the board each quarter, since most banking measures are reported on those cycles. Revisit targets once a year alongside the budget and capital plan. Objectives should hold for the life of the strategy unless the bank's risk profile changes materially.

Can a balanced scorecard be cascaded to branches and business lines?

Yes, by giving each unit the same objectives with its own share of the target. A commercial banking team owns operating account capture and loan closing time; a branch region owns primary household share and universal banker certification. Avoid letting units invent separate objectives, which breaks the cause-and-effect chain the scorecard relies on.

Balanced scorecard example for a regional bank

Get the Word file

What this balanced scorecard template includes

Worked example

Context

Mission and strategy in brief

Objectives by perspective

Cause-and-effect links

Financial: earn a return above our cost of capital

Customer: be the primary bank for the customers we already have

Internal process: make opening, lending and control work faster

Learning and growth: develop bankers who advise, on data they can trust

Blank balanced scorecard template

Context

Mission and strategy in brief

Objectives by perspective

Cause-and-effect links

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

Get the Word file

How to adapt it

How to run it

Common mistakes

Questions, answered.

What this balanced scorecard template includes

Worked example

Financial: earn a return above our cost of capital

Customer: be the primary bank for the customers we already have

Internal process: make opening, lending and control work faster

Learning and growth: develop bankers who advise, on data they can trust

Blank balanced scorecard template

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

How to adapt it

How to run it

Common mistakes

Questions, answered.

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