interview<\/a> with The Compound that there hasn\u2019t been a wave of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the banking sector since the 1990s.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s been very much discouraged post Dodd-Frank, so you\u2019ve had very, very little M&A. But I actually think as a country we need [a wave of M&A]. And the reason why I say that is here\u2019s an interesting statistic: in 2007, JPMorgan\u2019s share of deposits in the United States was 7%, today it\u2019s close to 14%.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nNow, there are a couple of reasons for that: number one is the cost of regulation is very, very high, and they can bear that more easily, and number two, which is probably even more important, is the cost of technology has exploded, and you need to be really big so you can pay for it.<\/em><\/p>\nSo if we do nothing and we keep the current policies and there\u2019s no M&A wave, what\u2019s going to happen is JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and a handful of others will continue to take market share, the other regional banks are going to wither on the vine, and what you\u2019ll have left is a couple of very, very large banks and some community banks.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nEisman, whose bet against the housing market was famously profiled in parts of Michael Lewis\u2019 book \u201cThe Big Short,\u201d says financial institutions like US Bank and Comerica should merge to compete with the giant firms.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be Canada, where it\u2019s basically a cartel, and so therefore those banks get to charge a lot more to customers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n