"The Growth of Dominance: Exploring the US Banking System and the Rise of the Big Four"

The banking system in the United States is composed of a combination of small community banks and large commercial banks. The Federal Reserve System, also known as the Fed, oversees and regulates the entire banking system in the United States.

The biggest banks in the United States, known as the "big four," are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup. These four banks collectively hold around 40% of all US bank deposits, and their assets amount to trillions of dollars. They have grown to dominance over the past few decades through a combination of mergers, acquisitions, and aggressive expansion strategies.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a series of laws and regulations were relaxed that had previously prevented banks from expanding across state lines and engaging in certain types of financial activities. This allowed the biggest banks to merge with one another and to acquire smaller regional banks, consolidating power and market share.

In addition, the biggest banks have invested heavily in technology and innovation, which has allowed them to provide a wide range of financial services and products to their customers. This has helped them to retain and attract customers, as well as to generate profits and gain market share.

Critics of the big banks argue that their dominance creates a risk to the financial system, as they are "too big to fail" and their collapse could have widespread repercussions for the economy as a whole. However, others argue that their size and scale allow them to better manage risk and weather economic downturns.