Law Commons^™

Bank Holding Company Act: Has It Lived Its Life, The , Carl Felsenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (BHCA) "regulates the acquisition of state and national banks by bank holding companies." The BHCA also regulates the nonbanking activities of bank holding companies and their nonbank subsidiaries. The BHCA was enacted and remains on the books for two fundamental reasons: 1) to prevent undue concentration in banking; and 2) to avoid the mixing of banking with other businesses unrelated to banking (generally called "commerce"). Both of these purposes have been or are being discredited, and it is time to ask whether the BHCA should be repealed. On several levels, banking is combined …