The Penetration of the UK Corporate Market by US Banks

Abstract

Documents US banks' expansion overseas and stresses that London has, internationally, been an important centre for them in their operations. States also that by early 1979 US banks were the largest bank group in the UK and that by the early 1970s US bank lending to UK manufacturing industry was almost half that of the London clearing banks. Proposes that among large corporate customers US and other foreign banks became preferred as second source banks, with the clearing banks still preferred as the first source. Highlights the vigour with which the US banks will continue to pursue the UK corporate sector – though this will be hard to judge. Says that clearing banks are not under immediate pressure from US/foreign banks but that the threat has galvanized them into attempting to rectify their market position. Concludes that the revival of US domestic loan demand has given the US banks an opportunity to reassess whether their original investment in London could now be reduced and the available funds more profitably employed in the US.