A method for minimizing overdraft charge-off in a bank account includes: (a) identifying a plurality of factors that can result in a bank account charge-off; (b) building a case history database of bank account holder information based upon a plurality of data elements associated with each of the plurality of factors; (c) creating numeric and/or categorical representations of the bank account holder information for each of the bank accounts in the case history database; (d) tabulating the numeric and/or categorical representations and the data elements for the bank accounts in the case history database; (e) combining certain ones of the numeric and/or categorical representations to separate the bank accounts in the case history database into a plurality of risk groups, each risk group having an associated probability of charge-off; and (f) optimizing, for each of the plurality of risk groups, a bank profit, by setting overdraft limits.