McKinsey estimates that in the United States, it costs ~$550 per year to service each customer or $45.83 per month. I have found this data to be approximately correct in reviewing the financial statements of several banks in the US that are publicly traded (JPM, Citi, BofA, WFC, USBank, Alpine Bank, Morgan Stanley).
These numbers can be divided between compensation costs and other costs, which are mostly technology, marketing, and occupancy (real estate). You can't get all of this for the retail-only business lines but you can make some assumptions and get some estimates that are useful guideposts.
That is an interesting number from the perspective of a new venture. This is because ultimately incumbent service is neither very good or very cheap. It is built of legacy systems that are held together by masses of people whose only job is to make sure these systems keep talking to each other.
After decades to properly integrate all of this, most banks have not yet done so. Even with the coming of AI it seems a job that is both unappealing and unlikely to be done. The sheer expense of this kind of effort alone is probably enough to dissuade most CEOs (note that JPM already expenses ~$8 billion on tech each year, which does not include the purchases that they capitalize.
If you can provide objective and platform-agnostic service that is better and hit this target, the one that these banks already pass onto their customers anyway, you could be in business.
Literally...
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