Banks and bank-like financial institutions operating within the United States and within most other countries must deal with extensive regulation in the form of rules and laws enforced by federal and state agencies. These regulations cover and monitor all areas of their operations, service offerings, credit quality and quantity, capital position, and the manner in which they grow and expand their facilities. This regulatory climate is primarily designed to protect the public interest, to encourage savings and investment by establishing an environment of economic soundness and stability, and to provide the public adequate financial information and credit without discrimination.
Additionally, the actions of banks can have effects which reach far into the structure of an economy: they have the power to create money by making loans and investment through extending credit; they provide loans that support consumption and investment spending; and they have long had a functional involvement with government through collecting taxes, dispensing government payments and other operations which closely tie them into the economic climate and policy-making. Cushman, p. 133).
In the United States, banks are regulated through a dual banking system; they are governed at both the state and federal level. This was designed to give the states significant control over banks, and also to ensure that banks would be treated fairly as they expanded their operations across state lines.
Regulatory agencies are responsible for gathering and evaluating the information necessary to assess the true financial condition of banks to protect the public against loss due to mismanagement, embezzlement or fraud through periodic examinations and/or audits. (Rose, p. 33).
The main regulatory agencies at the federal level are the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
