[bobmarino]

so the "Big Four" have ~4.8 trillion in assets and a small business loan portfolio of ~91 billion, 1.9% of their combined assets. Small and medium sized banks (those with assets under $10 billion) have ~3.9 trillion in assets and a small business loan portfolio of approximately 413 billion or 10.6% of total assets.

The first take away is when you deposit money in a smaller bank chances are a much larger portion of your money will be reinvested back into the community in the form of small business loans.

A second, quite interesting, if more speculative takeaway, is what if the Big Four were broken up? What is their 4.8 trillion in assets were controlled by a much larger number of smaller banks? The answer is that the pool of assets available for small business lending would vastly expand. And yes, small businesses are credit starved, particularly so since the 2008 Financial Crisis. Another great benefit of breaking up the largest banks would be reducing the influence of the financial system on our political system which is particularly prone to regulatory capture.