Globalization of Financial Institutions: Evidence from Cross-Border Banking Performance

MERGERSANDACQUI SITIONS among very large financial institutions are becoming more frequent in markets around the world, attracting the attention of policymakers, researchers, and the financial press and continually reshuffling the rankings of the world's largest financial services firms.Most of these mega-mergers have combined commercial banking organizations within a single nation.In the United States, recent mergers and acquisitions (M&As) between large banking organizations-such as Bank of America-NationsBank, Banc One-First Chicago, and Norwest-Wells Fargo-rank among the largest M&As in terms of market values in any industry in U.S. history.In Europe, mega-mergers like UBS-Swiss Bank are similarly creating giant banking organizations that are much larger than the world's largest banks of just a few years past.In Japan, the three-way combination of Fuji Bank, Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, and Industrial Bank of Japan is creating the world's first trillion-dollar bank.