The article is very useful for the economists and academicians and also to the student community-especially research scholars.However, it could have been more effective had it given the core details like employees strength,number of branches/offices etc.. for all the 10 banks instead of for mere 3 banks.It dispels the widely held belief of taking the Bank of America as the number one by the general public and brings out certain interesting factors about genesis,evolution and transformation etc. of some banks.The origin of VISA and Master Cards is also made known to the readers.It is surprising to note that,of all the ten big banks,except for the Bank of Tokyo and Bank of America(BOA), rest of eight are from Europe.It appears that BOA would not have been able to be in the race had its capital base been not strengthened by the erstwhile Bank of Italy's merger.Though wonder struck for a while,I could sense the mystery behind a Swiss Bank's emerging as the biggest of all which could be rightly traced,most probably,to their secrecy policy which insulates the exposition of the source of deposits.Needless to say,the huge amounts of illegal/illicit/illgotten black monies earned or acquired by corrupt,criminal or any other type of shady characters would only flow to such banks.And those who want their funds to be safe also wish their banks to be safe with solid capital base towards which they naturally subscribe more and more. How banks channelise such deposits legally?
