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The Glass Steagall Act Of 1933

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In 1999 the United States Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act which finished off the repealing process of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 (Moffett, Stonehill, & Eiteman, 2012, p. 114). The Glass-Steagall Act had imposed barriers within the United States financial sector, where commercial banking entities were separate from investment banks. This meant that commercial banks were able to operate in higher risk activities that were traditionally reserved for the investment institutes. Commercial banks were now able to directly offer their customers a wider array of loans, including creative mortgage arrangements.
The investment banks, and subsequent stock brokerage firms, was regulated by the Security and Exchange Commission. The banking entities, in this portion of the financial sector, were used to dealing in high risk business that were structured on the business’ equity and debt capital, instead of the commercial banks’ deposits of customers. The activities in this sector of the financial system were underwriting stocks and bonds, insurance markets, the investments in subprime debt markets and mortgages.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the institute in charge of regulating commercial banks, became burden with an innovative need to assess the expanding investment activity of the commercial banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had previously been assigned the easy task of assessing the commercial banks, within

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