Alpharetta Dubbed 'Bank-Failure Capital' By Wall Street Journal (Atlanta: mortgage, loans)

[neil0311]

Alpharetta Dubbed 'Bank-Failure Capital' By Wall Street Journal - News Story - WSB Atlanta

[teacher30004]

That explains the many different banks in the area. I've never seen so many different banks in a small area before. Maybe GA will wake up and get with the times.

[Georgia]

Originally Posted by teacher30004

That explains the many different banks in the area. I've never seen so many different banks in a small area before. Maybe GA will wake up and get with the times.

Then you must have never traveled to Virginia, nor West Virginia, nor Pennsylvania, nor New England.
Once you travel out of many metro city limit areas one can find small banks some dating back decades. Actually, many of the small banks are in great financial shape unlike the Wachovia's and Sun Trust's of the world and now Citi.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by Georgia

Then you must have never traveled to Virginia, nor West Virginia, nor Pennsylvania, nor New England.
Once you travel out of many metro city limit areas one can find small banks some dating back decades. Actually, many of the small banks are in great financial shape unlike the Wachovia's and Sun Trust's of the world and now Citi.

On the other hand, I think it was the US practice of keeping banks local and small by regulation, that led to the practice of mortgage securitization that's one of the causes of the current financial mess.

In my home country, Canada, by contrast, the banks are few in number, national in scope, large, stable and very profitable. They've never traded mortgages around, because their wide geographic scope has avoided the need for that. A Canadian bank can offset deposits from Montreal with mortgage loans in Alberta, without involving another institution.

I've been very amused by the advertising of the Royal Bank of Canada's US subsidiary, RBC Bank, in recent months. It used to be that bank was called RBC-Centura (because RBC originally acquired their US arm by buying Centura Bank, I think) and it appeared they certainly weren't trying to make their "foreignness" apparent to American customers. Now I notice their radio advertising has taken to trumpeting that they're part of the Royal Bank of Canada, a HUGE, SAFE, CANADIAN institution.