The Federal government has not rejected a single bank merger in over 15 years. Instead, regulators have been letting banks get bigger and bigger, risking the financial stability of the nation’s economy.

Now more than three-quarters of local banking markets are uncompetitive, reducing the availability of credit for consumers, increasing fees for basic banking services, and lowering the interest rates offered on deposits. That’s bad for all of us. It’s bad for consumers, small businesses, and local communities.

These adverse effects are even more pronounced in communities of color where bank consolidation has led to branch closures and expanded banking deserts.  

Join Americans for Financial Reform and a coalition of more than two dozen public interest organizations in calling on the Federal government to stop all bank mergers until guidelines for consolidation are strengthened to protect consumers and communities.