Bank Regulation and Bank Complexity

U.S. Bank Holding Companies (BHCs) currently control about 3,000 subsidiaries that provide community housing services?such as building low-income housing units, maintaining shelters, and providing housing services to the elderly and disabled. This aspect of U.S. BHC activity is intriguing because it departs from the traditional deposit-taking and loan-making operations typically associated with banks. But perhaps most importantly, the sheer number of these subsidiaries makes one think about the organizational complexity of U.S. BHCs. This is an issue that has generated much discussion in recent years. In this post we describe the emergence and growth of community housing subsidiaries and discuss to what extent they contribute to the complexity of their parent organizations.