| The dispute of the integration of financial services and the separation of financial services is a long-debated topic,which can be dated back to 1930s ,when, shocked by the reality of more than 5,000 bank failures in "the Great Depression", people began to suspect the validity of bank operating securities business and at last preferred the separation of bank business and securities business. But since 1970s, with the development of financial liberalization, the integration of bank, securities and insurance has become an irreversible trend. Most developed countries have forsaken their old institutions and allowed the integration of financial services, hence arise different models. Germany permits its banks to expand their activities within the banks, which we call "universal bank model". Great British adopts "bank-parent model", allowing its banks to operate securities and insurance activities on condition that they set up separate subsidiaries to operate these activities. The banks of the United States under "holding company model" should set up a financial holding company, if they wanted to expand their businesses to securities and insurance field. Why are there so many different models? What's the difference of these models? If the banks of our country were allowed to expand their businesses, which model should they adopt? These questions are what I want to answer in this paper.To answer these questions, this paper is divided into five parts.In the first part of the paper, some examples are cited to illustrate the truth: the institution of the integration of financial services has overcome the institution of the separation of financial services in the world. In the second part of the paper, to answer the question why "integration" has replaced "separation" in a worldwide scope is the main point. Compared with the institution of the separation of financial services, the institution of the integration of financial services has the advantages ofinformation economics and scope economics, but it also has the disadvantages of expansion of risk, conflicts of interests and extension of subsidy etc. So, the integration of financial services is a double-bladed sword. Then, why has "integration" replaced "separation" in the past thirty years? Our analysis shows that the change of environment plays an important role. In the past thirty years, at one side, financial disintermediary and reversion of market force have been strengthening the advantages of "integration", at the other side, developing capital market and more and more perfect bank supervision have been lessening the disadvantages of "separation". So, the institution of the integration of financial services becomes inevitable.In the third part of the paper, I employ the theories of the second part to make contrast of three models mentioned above. Through the contrast, I found that there exists "trade-off" relationship among three models, which means that we can't say that one model is superior to another, because each model has its own advantages and disadvantages. So, the aspect each country wants to emphasize determines its choice among three models. For example, if a country thinks safety outweighs efficiency, "holding company model" may be a better choice. But another country may think otherwise. Just for that reason, different countries adopt different integration models.Through the analysis of the laws of different countries, I found that, even within the same country, there exist different integration models for different banks and different activities.The fourth part of the paper is a practical study. In this part, I try to answer this question which model the banks of our country should choose, if "integration" were inevitable? In the whole, the bank-parent model and the holding company model may turn out to be superior. But in specific cases, for different banks and different activities, there should be differentchoices. In the last part of the paper, I make a review of the paper.Looking over the paper, I fin... |
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