Conversely, the countries that are having the most difficult time of it happen to be those with banking systems that are troubled and bank supervisory standards that are undeveloped or inadequate. But now the future is here. The new world of banking may indeed be at hand. Consumers of financial services still have questions about how they will fare in the new banking regime. For some consumers, the existence of financial conglomerates raises privacy concerns.
Questions continue to come from many quarters about the consequences of a mega-bank failure.
Finally, and more to the point, many people questioned and still question how prepared we are in the regulatory arena to protect the public interest in a safe, sound, and accessible banking system for all Americans. A number of these questions were put to me when I testified before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the House of Representatives in April. The fact is, that what began on April 6 of this year was not really a new story at all, but rather the latest chapter in an old story, one that goes back more than two generations. Today, there are fewer than 3,000 national banks, and that number will almost certainly decline further, thanks to the current merger trend. Much of this consolidation has come about as the result of mergers and acquisitions, with almost 7,000 mergers involving all U.S. banks occurring just since 1980.