The principles and features of the concentration of banks in the U.S.

In contrast to other developed countries, the U.S. banking system are composed of many thousands of banks. Although the United States in the XX century. the total number of banks has decreased dramatically (they numbered 31,076 in 1931, and in August 1972 - 13 877), however superficially, it looks as though there is decentralized in the U.S. banking system.
 This creates the visibility and because the bank's branch network in the U.S. is limited to a narrow scope than in other countries. For a long time, U.S. banks had no right to open branches, and in the future (the laws of 1927 and 1933.), This right was granted to them, but with significant restrictions. Thus, banks could have branches only within this state, and in some states, banks generally are prohibited from opening branches. Although the number of bank branches in recent decades has increased dramatically (from 4168 in 1945 to 56,513 in 1995), however the number of bank branches throughout the country, only 1.5 times the total number of banks. However, the superficial scattered character of banking in the U.S. is hiding the dominance of a small group of giant banks.

 One manifestation of the concentration of banks in the U.S. - the so-called local density, ie concentration of the bulk of banking resources in a few paragraphs, that is, available to banks five states (New York, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas) were about half of all the resources of U.S. banks, only one in New York State was concentrated about 18% of all the resources of banks - members of the Fed.
 The local concentration is combined with the concentration of banking resources in a few large banks. For example, in August of 1972 160 large banks (from a total of 13,877 commercial banks), ie only 1.2% of all banks had 57% of total assets and liabilities of commercial banks in the country. At the end of 1971 of the 500 largest commercial banks in the capitalist world had 178 banks in the U.S., and the total amount of their deposits amounted to 328 billion dollars, or about 29% of the total deposits of the largest banks.
 An explicit expression for the concentration of banks in the U.S. - the merger of banks. The number of these mergers has increased greatly after the First World War: 1910-1920 gg. merger occurred in 1523 that covered the banks in 2968, and in 1921-1931. - 5094 merger that covered 9538 banks. After the Second World War, the total number of bank mergers has decreased (from 1953 to 1970. It was 2754), but a number of mergers of large banks (eg, "Chase" with "Manhetgen Bank") significantly increased the concentration process in the U.S. banking industry.
 The peculiarity of the concentration of banks in the U.S., unlike, say, England, is that it acts primarily in disguised forms. One form of latent concentration of banks is to use large resources of small banks through correspondent banking relationships. Large banks of the central cities in the U.S., entering into correspondent banking relationships with many small provincial banks are actually in possession of some of their resources. A clear indication of this are the inter-bank deposits. Thus, through correspondent relationships largest U.S. banks to increase their resources.
 Latent form of the concentration of banks is the so-called system of interlocking directorates, which consists in the mutual participation of the directors of some banks in the management of others. Another form of hidden concentrations of banks in the U.S. - a system of chain links. In this case, the entire "chain" of banks teaming agreement, the temporary nature of the joint holding of any major financial transactions or permanent agreements on mutual support and mutual exchange of shares, the implementation of a uniform monetary policy, etc.
 An important form of latent concentration of banks in the U.S. - a system of banking groups. It is the merger of many banks under the supervision of a public company, the acquiring their shares, and is usually referred to as the "Society for the holding of shares" (holding companies).
 In recent years, the United States, as well as in other developed countries, there has been increasing government intervention in the banking sector. However, the central banks of issue of the country (Federal Reserve Banks) are not (unlike the UK) owned by the state. However, the government controls them, they are closely linked to the Ministry of Finance and investing their money mainly in government securities. Direct state ownership is the federal land banks, Commodity Credit Corporation and the Export-Import Bank.