The Big Bank Theory

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Such laissez-faire battles delight men like "Missiles" McColl. If cyberspace really is the final frontier of finance, why not let it regulate itself, with a kind of frontier justice meted out by the market? And as these superbanks battle to survive against the Microsofts of the world--a battle in which the outcome is still anything but certain--the Wild West promises to get even wilder.

Consumers might find this terrifying, but the superbankers love it. Because their gigantic banks are "too large to fail," firms like the new BankAmerica and Citigroup will offer the safest possible havens for investors--safer, perhaps, than even government-printed money. In the end, what the semper financiers are after is not just new customers or new deposits but a kind of business immortality ensured by their gargantuan size and guaranteed by their killer technology. E-cash, wealth accounts and consumer derivatives will have made these firms as essential as cash itself once was. If business immortality can be purchased, these are the people who will figure out how to finance it. And they will be doing so with your money.

--With reporting by Bernard Baumohl, Edward Barnes and William Dowell/New York and Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles