Why Banks Sometimes Seek to Merge other Banks or Financial Institutions

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Explain why banks sometimes seek to merge with with

Explain why banks sometimes seek to merge with with or acquire other

banks or financial institutions.

Great changes have been experiences in banking industry for the past

decades. The most apparent alter is a mass of bank mergers, which have

expanded both the average size of banks and their territories. Other

dramatic changes including the development of Internet banking and the

combination of banking with other financial services, for example,

insurance and securities underwriting are also encountered.

(Number of banks declining despite overall growth in the banking

sector.)

Consolidation in banking is distinct from "convergence."

Consolidation refers to mergers and acquisitions of banks by banks.

Convergence refers to the mixing of banking and other types of

financial services like securities and insurance, through acquisitions

or other means. Consolidation will provide banks with new capabilities

technologies and products, help to overcome entry barriers, ensure

immediate entry into new markets and lower operating costs through

consolidation of resources.

Background on recent consolidation

Large Bank Mergers (Both targets and acquirers have more than one

billion dollars in total assets The Riegle-Neal Act granted interstate

branch banking beginning in 1997.

Since then, the number of large bank mergers has risen dramatically.

sketch this trend along with another remarkable trend,

i.e., that most of the large bank mergers in recent years involved

institutions headquartered in different states; the latter point

advises that these are market-expansion mergers, even though the

acquirer and the target have few overlapping operations in their

respective banking markets. Although the markets they serve are much

bigger, until now none of these three mega banks has achieved the goal

in having a banking franchise that spans all 50 states, which is

feasible in law.

Another noticeable fact about the recently announced mega mergers is

that the target banking companies are positive institutions that are

likely to survive as independent organizations. This is in stark

contrast both to the late 1980s and early 1990s in the U.S., when many

bank mergers involved relatively feeble banking companies being

acquired by somewhat stronger organizations, as well as to s...

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