Law Commons^™

The United States has a dual banking system in which banks can be charted either as a National Bank under the National Bank Act or a State Bank under any one of fifty different state banking laws. State Banks have often led the way in banking innovations and developing new approaches for regulating and examining financial institutions. However, in the past decade, State Banks have experienced difficulties in remaining competitive with National Banks, primarily because of the increasingly broad powers granted to National Banks by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Some states have responded by enacting "wild …