Amazon buying Capital One? Fat chance, but fun to ponder
By Kristin Broughton
Amazon is itching to buy Capital One. No way that could happen … well, er, right, everybody? OK. Admit it. You think that would be illegal, but you don’t remember why anymore. … Such a transaction would most certainly fail to pass the muster of regulators – and would likely run afoul of decades-old banking laws. “There is a longstanding and firm barrier between banking and commerce,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, describing it as a “foundational” principle of banking law dating back to the Bank Holding Company Act. The legal principle is designed to prevent various conflicts of interest, such as the flow of deposits into a company’s own enterprises, according to Petrou.
https://www.americanbanker.com/news/amazon-buying-capital-one-fat-chance-but-fun-to-ponder
