Big banks have now joined the fight alongside their smaller counterparts in opposing new industrial loan charter applications; in March the FDIC formalized the ILC process and approved deposit insurance applications from Square and Nelnet; in recent months Rakuten has re-filed their application and Edward Jones filed a new application; the Bank Policy Institute said Congress should bar non financial companies from owning industrial banks; “Past efforts by large commercial firms, such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot, to acquire FDIC-insured ILCs have raised significant concern and alarm,” Dafina Stewart, the Bank Policy Institute’s Associate General Counsel, wrote in a June 30 letter according to American Banker; Financial Innovation Now, a trade group whose members include Amazon, Apple, Google, PayPal and Square, says the banking industry in engaging in fearmongering; the Center for Responsible Lending believes allowing more industrial banks will only increase high-cost lending and that the current proposal by the FDIC is a recipe for disaster. American Banker.
