Financial Industry Megamergers and Policy Challenges

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In the past few years, the pace of consolidation in the banking industry has accelerated, and combinations between banks and other financial service providers have become increasingly prevalent. In some countries, consolidation has resulted from the need to eliminate weak or problem institutions. More generally, however, the unprecedented wave of merger activity in financial services is being driven by powerful changes in telecommunications and information technology and by the removal of legal and regulatory barriers to national and international linkages. An important recent development is a change in the scale of financial industry mergers. Indeed, the size of these business …