The recent wave of bank mergers has raised concern with its effect on competition. This paper examines the influence of concentration and merger activity on consumer loan interest rates. It uses Bank Rate Monitor, Inc. survey data on loan rates quoted weekly by large commercial banks in ten...

Like security prices, retail deposit interest rates cluster around integers and "even" fractions. However, explanations for security price clustering are incompatible with deposit rate clustering. A theory based on the limited recall of retail depositors is proposed. It predicts that banks tend...

An examination of banks' optimal deposit-rate-setting behavior when some customers have limited recall, showing that when banks exploit this phenomenon, deposit rates will tend to be set at round fractions and will be relatively "sticky" at these levels.

The market prices of stocks and other assets tend to cluster on round fractions. A similar clustering is found in the interest rates paid on retail bank deposits. However, the theoretical rationales given for asset-price clustering are incompatible with the clustering of retail deposit rates....