The long-term trends of consolidation and innovation in the U.S. banking system have intensified over the past decade. A small number of banking organizations now hold a larger portion of the banking system's assets, and, at the same time, their activities have become more complex. As a result,...

This paper examines how the production of payment services impacts the franchise value of banks. It also explores whether analysis are incorrectly measuring the performance of the banking sector and failing to realize the full importance of payments-driven revenues to banks. In initial empirical...

Federal interstate banking and branching reform is about to become a reality, with the first phase of new legislation going into effect later this year. Past experience at the state level suggests that reform will accelerate the pace of industry consolidation but may not lead immediately to...