A Bank By Any Other Name

Banks are regulated by the government. However, because the generic term bank applies to a number of different types of financial institutions that provide different services, different types of regulation are required. This issue has attracted much attention in recent years as nonfinancial firms - including Wal-Mart - attempted to obtain a bank. This article traces changes in the definition of the term commercial bank for the purposes of regulation and discusses thee implications for one type of bank: industrial loan companies