GEOGRAPHIC EXPANSION LLS Course Web Pages TWEN 地理扩张的策略课程网页的的答案.doc

GEOGRAPHIC EXPANSION This is a draft revision of Chapter 5-A through -C of Macey, Miller Carnell, Banking Law and Regulation (3d ed. 2001) Unless otherwise specified, page references are to that work Copyright ? 2006 by Richard Scott Carnell, Jonathan R. Macey, and Geoffrey P. Miller We saw in Chapter 1 (pages 17-20) that the United States long had a system of unit banking, under which banks could operate from only one office and could not open branch offices of any sort. Nor, traditionally, did banks sidestep such prohibitions by having holding companies establish or acquire banks in new markets. The bank building typically was the bank; there was no other. But categorical prohibitions against branching no longer exist: every state permits banks to have multiple offices. And although small banks continue to prosper, the movement toward consolidation and geographic expansion proceeds apace, both within and across state lines. Bank holding companies acquire additional banks. Banks acquire additional branches. Banks also extend their geographic reach in many other ways, such as by offering loans or credit cards to (or soliciting deposits from) persons far beyond the banks’ branch network. The growth of the Internet further extends banks’ geographic reach, enabling them to do some kinds of business nationwide and even worldwide. It also makes possible “Internet banks” whose physical location hardly matters. But despite the sweeping trend toward geographic expansion, some federal and state restrictions on such expansion still remain in effect. Moreover, the antitrust laws (and their distant kindred, the limits on bank deposit concentration) can also constrain such expansion. In this chapter we consider five key aspects of geographic expansion: First, the rationale for geographic restrictions. Second, the legal framework governing interstate expansion by bank holding companies, including the acquisition of banks and other firms outside a h