In the near future, with blossoming combinations of conventional financial companies, all those services may be available through an ATM machine. The stakes are high. By some reckonings, financial services are the third most frequently purchased item by American consumers, after food and gasoline. To protect consumers, salespeople at the bank are required by the new law to make it clear to customers that unlike bank deposits, securities investments and insurance are not federally insured. Also, banks will be prohibited from requiring customers to buy insurance or securities as a condition for getting a loan approved.
Privacy is a key issue.
For the first time, consumers have the right, by written request, to stop the newly affiliated banks, investment firms and insurers from sharing their personal financial data with firms outside the corporate group, such as telemarketers. And the affiliated financial companies are entitled to share customers' personal data with each other. That's a key reason they wanted to be able to merge - to help them find potential customers for new products in their marketing campaigns. It also raised a firestorm of protest by consumer groups, privacy advocates and some Democratic lawmakers. The barriers between the financial services industries had been in place since the Great Depression - when lawmakers feared another stock market crash like that of October 1929 and wanted to separate investment banking, with its greater penchant for risk, from commercial banking to prevent depositors' money from being lost in risky investments.