Recent trends in U.S. and German banking: convergence or divergence?

The purpose of this study is to focus on two leading industrialized nations - the U.S. and Germany - analyze the differences in the recent trends in their respective banking sectors and see if indeed the banking industries in these two leading economies are gravitating towards a homogeneous global banking structure or, even after the current changes, have entered the 21st century with continuing differences. We find a convergent model of universal banking with voluntary separation, by subsidiary, of commercial and investment banking.