Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input.

Why do banks require small businesses to open a business bank account instead of a cheaper personal one?
The bank won't let you because: Differences in required account features — Business accounts have different features (many of them legal features) that are required by businesses. For instances: Do you want to be able to deposit cheques that are written out to your business name? You need a business account for that. Your business could be sold. Then it wouldn't be your business, so it wouldn't make sense to put the business account under your personal name. The bank account and the cash it holds is a business asset and should be owned by the business, so when the business is sold the account goes with it. This is especially the case for a corporation that has shareholders, and not a sole proprietorship. For a business, you could also, in theory, assign other people as signing authorities on the business account (e.g. your corporate treasurer), and the individuals performing that role could change over time. Business accounts allow for this kind of use. Market segmentation — The bank has consciously undertaken to segment their product offerings in order to maximize their profit. Market segmentation helps the bottom line. Even if there were zero legal reasons to have separate personal vs. business accounts, banks would still make it their policy to sell different account types according to use because they can make more money that way. Consider an example in another industry: The plain-old telephone company also practices segmentation w.r.t. personal/business. Do you want a telephone line for a business and listed as such in the phone book? You need a business line. Do you want a phone line hooked up at a non-residential address? You need a business line. Here it's clear it is less of a legal issue than with the bank account, and it doesn't matter that the technical features of the phone line may be identical for the basic product offerings within each segment. The phone company has chosen to segment and price their product offerings this way. Q. Why do companies choose to charge some kinds of customers more than others for essentially the same underlying service? A. Because they can.