This document provides information about investment banking and its role in the US financial industry. It discusses how investment banks helped create the 2008 housing bubble through improper mortgage allocation. It also describes the key functions of investment banks like facilitating IPOs, providing investment advice, and assisting with mergers and acquisitions. The document then outlines the major US regulatory bodies that oversee investment banking and five important regulations that have impacted the industry, including the Glass-Steagall Act that originally separated commercial and investment banking.

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GRI research project
Business Enterprise Environment
Sneh Shah
Dr. Seaman
NYIT School of Management
Summer 2015

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Financial industry of United States has the capability to speed the economy of the country and
also has the potential to destroy the economy. Major economy downwards in United States has
happened due to the failure of financial industries. In that investment banking and the
commercial banking are the key player of any financial industries in the world. Investment
banking is the backbone of the financial industry. Recession of 2008 has been happened due to
the improper mortgage allotment in housing industry. Investment banking had the major role of
allotment of the mortgage in realtor industry. Invest banks helped to create the bubble in housing
market. Investment banking acts as the agent in trading the financial securities like stocks and
bonds. Investment banking helps to expand capital market.
What Investment banks do?
1. Initial public offering – Investment banks play the major role in distributing IPO of any
company to the public. At first company who wants to go for public trading goes to the
Investment banks and investment banks take the part of the share of the company. Now
Investment banks decide the price of the share and then banks distribute the shares in
public (Lohse, 1997).
2. Investment – Investment bank gives the advice to the issuer of the share and other money
market securities and also gives the advice to the investors about investing money in
stocks, bonds and other securities called hedge funds. Investment banks also provide the
advice for mutual funds and on real estate industry to investors. Investment banks get the
commission by performing these functions (Bodnaruk, 2009).
3. Mergers and Acquisition – Investment bank also helps to do merging or the acquisition
between two companies. Investment banks act as a broker between two companies and
help in negotiation and also help in finding the group of bidders who are willing to do

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merging or acquisition. Nowadays, Investment banks do the market research and publish
the report on company review for buying or selling. These kind of reports help in M&A.
These days, companies are using these reports but they do not use the investment bank
service a broker for M&A (Elstein, 1999).
4. Role in secondary market – All kind of market equities are traded in secondary market
via investment banks. Investment banks set the price for the buyers and for the sellers.
Price for bidders and sellers are different. By doing this practice the fair value for equity
can be known and trading would be done easily. This whole process is described as the
market making process.
5. Structure Financing – This is the most complicated and riskier financing process.
Sometimes the loan is not sufficient for the borrowers to satisfy their financial needs so
they will go to the investment banks to borrow money under the name of complex
securities like collateralize bond, debt or mortgage obligations. Structure financing has
made possible to borrow the large amount of money for the big projects like
constructions (Jobst, 2005).
Investment banks also indulge themselves in merchant banking and in managing the risk by
giving the good credit or bad credit to traders.
Regulatory bodies for Investment banking
In United States, rules and regulations for investment banking are governed by the three
major government departments.
1) Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) – FDIC is responsible to deposit
insurance for the security of each account holder of independent banks of United States.

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If any bank goes in bankruptcy, it will be FDIC responsibility to protect account
depositors. FDIC also inspects different financial firms in terms of the security and
safety.
2) Federal Reserve board – Federal Reserve board has twelve Federal Reserve banks in
twelve different stats of United States. These banks are for regulating the activities of
commercial banks as well as investment banks. Federal Reserve banks are also
responsible for regulating the flow of money in financial market. They have the ability to
print money.
3) National credit union administration (NCUA) – This independent government body is
responsible for the supervision of credit unions of United States. Insurance fund and other
mutual fund regulations are closely monitored by NCUA. Credit unions are regulated and
chartered by NCUA.
List of five major regulations
Investment banking has the major impact by five important regulations. These five
regulations have changed the banking system.
1. Banking act of 1933
2. International banking act of 1978
3. Riegle Neal interstate banking act of 1994
4. Gramm Leach Bliley Act of 1999
5. Volcker rule of 2014

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1. Banking act of 1933
Banking act 1933 is also known as the Glass Steagall act. This act was proposed by two people
named 1) Carter Glass and 2) Henry Steagall. This act was formed to overcome from the great
depression which was occurred in 1929. This act was making the restriction to merge
commercial banks and investment banks together. It means financial banks could either act as the
commercial bank or as the investment bank.
Investment banking became in focus due to four main points of glass steagle act
1. Commercial banks cannot trade any money market securities for public
2. Commercial banks were restricted to invest in securities for commercial banks
themselves.
3. Commercial banks were prohibited to buy any shares for clients. It means no
underwriting.
4. Commercial banks cannot make partnership with other organizations those are
responsible for trading financial securities.
These restrictions have made the investment banking as a separate financial industry.
Situation was created for banks to choose one of the streams for doing banking. One was
to be a commercial bank and other was to be an Investment bank. Classic example is JP
Morgan Corporation. JP Morgan Company had decided to be the commercial bank rather
than the investment bank. One of the employees of JP Morgan Company was not happy
and he had decided to make his own investment bank. This Investment bank is known as
Morgan Stanley.

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Effect of Glass Steagall act on investment banking
1. Banks were playing both the role as investment bank or as the commercial bank.
They need to abandon the one of their role so there was the loss of banks.
2. Banks had to lose the competitive advantage against other banks in foreign countries
and especially against European countries.
3. Competition between commercial banking was increased and forced to take the risky
steps to increase the profit against other commercial banks.
Glass Steagall act was considered as not a right act for the modern world with globalization.
Because of this act there was the government interference in some extend. Completely opposite
act was structured in 1999 under the name of Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
2. International Banking act 1978 (James R. Barthy, 2009)
International banking act was made to restrict the foreign banks from being one of the
biggest banks in United States. Local banks were able to open as many branch as they
can in home state only but they are not able to open offices in other states of USA.
Foreign banks had the advantage for opening as many offices they want in all over
United States. Regulations of local banks were not implemented on foreign banks.
Because of this unique advantage of foreign banks, they were inflated in all over United
State. Local investment banks were lagging behind from foreign investment banks.
There were two main provisions which have brought local investment banks in
competition.
 Foreign banks will be treated same as the local banks and they have to select one
home state for the office. Now there was no more advantage of being foreign
bank. Foreign investment banks and local investment banks were treated equally.

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 Foreign banks were needed to deposit the insurance as a security to FDIC. This
was as security for depositors.
Impact of international banking act of 1978 (Skigen & Fitzsimmons, 1979)
1. Foreign banks had no more competitive advantage after this rule.
2. The tension was created for the local banks those had the foreign branches.
There was the possibility that foreign countries might not treat well.
3. Riegle-Neal interstate banking act of 1994
Riegle Neal interstate banking was in from September 1994. This act was the replacement of
Mc- fadden act. This was implemented in two different years. Half of the act was implemented in
1994. In 1994, restriction of acquiring bank in interstate was taken out. Any bank in United
States has the right to acquire any bank even if the bank is not in the same state. After making
this as a rule, 1997 was the year to implement the whole Riegle Neal interstate banking act. Now
bank has the right to open its own branch in any state of United State. Now bank can acquire any
bank and can open it as the branch in United States.
Impact of Riegle-Neal Act on Investment banking (DeYoung et al., 2004)
Merging of financial sectors had become easy. There were no geographic restriction in merging
and acquisition. It has benefited to big financial banks. Investment banks and commercial banks
had the advantage of expanding. Investment banking was in its golden era. Merger and
acquisition do need the investment banking as a broker between two commercial banks and also
had the opportunity to do merging with another investment bank also. They were gaining the
profit from both the side.

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Commercial banks and Investment banks were becoming big firms by merging with each other.
Restriction of government was very less.
The impact of Riegle and Neal act had become double when the implementation of Gramm-
Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 was occurred. Whole structure of financial industry was changed
because of these two acts. These acts are also called as the cause of 2008 recession t (Barth
et al., 1996).
4. Gramm Leach Bliley Act of 1999
Gramm leach Bliley act is also known as Financial Services Modernization act. This act is
completely opposite of Glass Steagall act. Glass Steagall act was completely taken out from the
legislation by implementing GLB act. That time president of United States was Bill Clinton. He
also made the announcement that Glass Steagall act is not good for United States’ economy so
now there is no more Glass Steagall act (Gaviria, 2012). Glass steagall was responsible for
making investment banking and commercial banking as the separate financial industries. After
GLB act everything was changed. There was no longer restriction from merging with each other.
For instance, Commercial banks can merge with investment banks easily. It is said that this act
was passed because of the globalization. Foreign banks had no restriction like acting as
commercial bank or the investment bank. They can play both roles. Before GLB act, Local US
banks had to be either the commercial bank or the investment bank. To vanish this competitive
advantage GLB act was passed.

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Explanation of Gramm leach Bliley act
This act was for removing all the restrictions of financial industries. There were no more
different segments like investment banks and commercial banks. Commercial banks had no
restriction in buying securities for themselves as well as for clients. Commercial banks could act
as the investment banks and investment banks could act as commercial banks. They can also sell
insurance or can acquire the insurance company.
Effect of Gramm Leach Bliley act
 City bank and travel insurance merged together and made world’s largest financial
company. They were having the asset of $700 billion. Even JP Morgan and Chase bank
merged together to become United States’ number one bank in size.
 Because of merging financial banks had become larger and larger. They were having lots
of money in hand. They have used this money to lend mortgage in housing industry. By
giving mortgage, banks were expecting to get lot more interest rate on it. But I reality
housing bubble was created. When the bubble was burst, all financial banks were in debt.
Steps to improve this act
1. Commercial banks and investment banks should be separated by
implementing glass steagall act.
2. These firms had become too large to handle so it is necessary to cancel the
merging of big financial firms like JP Morgan and chase or city bank and
travelers insurance. This step is difficult to implement but it will have the
immediate effect on financial industry.
5. Volcker rule of 2014

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Volcker rule was implemented by Obama government. This rule was first proposed in 2009 by
Paul Volcker. This rule is passed under the dodd frank act of 2010. This act was made to
alleviate the effect of 2008 recession.
Explanation of Volcker rule (Taylor, 2010)
Volcker rule can be explained in two steps.
1) First is to repealed the effect of Riegle neal act. According to this act if merging can
happened between two financial industries, it should not acquire more than 10 % of
national deposits at FDIC. For instance, City bank and JP Morgan chase corporation will
merge then national deposits of both the company would be more than 10
%. In result, they cannot be merged by law.
2) Secondly proprietary trading was restricted. That means investment bank cannot practice
proprietary trading. Investment bank cannot trade securities for the betterment of itself. It
cannot take money of customer to invest for gaining the profit for its own company. Risk
factor was reduced by implementing Volcker rule.
Effect of Volcker rule
 Investment banks are not happy because of the restriction in proprietary trading.
Proprietary trading was one of the profit tools for investment banks. Because of
this profit margin is reduced.
 10% cap is worthless.
Modification in Volcker rule
There is the need of modification in Volcker rule

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 Merging between two financial companies should be restricted. Even small merge
can cause the big impact so no merging is the great idea.
Conclusion
Obama government has brought up Volcker rule but it is not enough to restrict another
recession in unite states. Merging of commercial banks and investment banks should be
prohibited. Even big companies like JP Morgan and city bank should be restricted to
expand their company in future. Because more money they would have, there will be more
chances to put that money in risk to gain the profit. Here too big to fail theory is in effect
so merging should be restricted. Glass steagall act was good for the United States
economy. Riegle-Neal interstate banking act of 1994 and Gramm Leach Bliley Act of
1999 were the cause of the great recession in 2008. So all rules of these two acts should be
revised for stable economy

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