As the US Treasury and regulators attempt to stop the financial meltdown, they are also redefining the banking model in unintended ways that may sow the seeds of financial turbulence in the future. By encouraging or allowing banks such as JPMorgan, Bank of America and Barclays to rescue weaker banks, useful as it is in the short term, they are also nurturing bigger universal banks. Their sheer size will not only strengthen the unwritten TBTF principle (“too big to fail”). The emerging banking model, based on financial conglomerates with a high degree of diversification, also creates problems for banking stability.
近期貝兒斯登(Bear Stearns)、雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)和美林(Merrill Lynch)作爲獨立銀行的失敗，令人對投資銀行業務的未來產生了懷疑。高盛(Goldman Sachs)和摩根史坦利(Morgan Stanley)轉型爲銀行控股公司，給存在了一個世紀的投資銀行敲響了喪鐘。與此同時，摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)、美國銀行(Bank of America)、富國銀行(Wells Fargo)和巴克萊(Barclays)等新巨擘的成長，似乎象徵着全能銀行模式對專業銀行的勝利。