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.
近期贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)、雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)和美林(Merrill Lynch)作为独立银行的失败，令人对投资银行业务的未来产生了怀疑。高盛(Goldman Sachs)和摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)转型为银行控股公司，给存在了一个世纪的投资银行敲响了丧钟。与此同时，摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)、美国银行(Bank of America)、富国银行(Wells Fargo)和巴克莱(Barclays)等新巨头的成长，似乎象征着全能银行模式对专业银行的胜利。