The reason why American banks were "tougher to deal with" in the USA in 1980-1990s was due to state charters. Before Clinton's interstate banking took effect in 1997, one would have had to bribe banks in all 50 states, but after 1/1/97, banks were allowed to operate across state lines, and combined with the end of Glass-Steagall, this allowed a giant round of consolidation between large banks and brokerage houses wchih effectively ended small banks. The consolidation, much like the idea of "representative government", creates a bottleneck where one can simply bribe a small group of people to gain control of the entire pie.