Von Ralf Keuper

Hin und wie­der über­kommt einen das Gefühl, als wür­de sich die Geschich­te doch wie­der­ho­len; wie in dem vor­lie­gen­den Fall.

Im Febru­ar 1930 erschien in The Atlan­tic der Bei­trag The Revo­lu­ti­on in Ban­king Theo­ry. Dar­in wur­den drei Trends benannt, die das Ban­king zu dem Zeit­punkt zu ver­än­dern begannen.

1. The fail­ure during the past eight years of 4925 banks out of a total of 30,812 in ope­ra­ti­on on June 30, 1921, has cal­led into ques­ti­on the sound­ness of the system. …

2. In spi­te of the pro­hi­bi­ti­on of branch ban­king by natio­nal sta­tu­te and by laws in most sta­tes, over six thousand banks in the United Sta­tes are in no sen­se inde­pen­dent unit banks, but are grou­ped in chains by hol­ding com­pa­nies, cor­po­ra­ti­ons, part­ner­ships, or individuals. …

3. Final­ly, the­re is the move­ment toward bank mer­gers, pre­sa­ging a new finan­cial era. In the last eight years, the num­ber of banks has been redu­ced by almost five thousand. …

Der Bei­trag zog das Zwischenfazit:

Sum­ma­ri­zing the…