It is a sorry tale for Bank of America and its serial bank acquirer, Hugh McColl, who announced this week that he will shortly resign as chairman. Twenty years ago, America's banking industry meant thousands of small local banks lending to people and small businesses in their neighbourhoods, plus a few big "money-centre" banks that lent to the country's biggest corporations. This multitude of little local banks struck politicians and regulators as a study in inefficiency. They scrapped the laws that stopped banks doing business across state lines, and in some cases even within different parts of the same state. That helped to trigger a wave of consolidation, still far from over, that has cut the number of banks in America from over 14,000 to under 8,500, and that made Mr McColl's name.
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