No problem if they publicly said they would do this, but this way is precisely the problem of developing countries. You wouldn't think it would happen in America.
For example it makes no mention of the harm caused 10 years ago in 2008, and the causal link between bank behavior and the final disaster.
Instead it is painted as an unrighteous limit to the banks natural path, using hidden tools to curb their growth.
Wsj, Bloomberg etc would assume that profitable growth at any cost is good (except of course at the cost of bad PR).
Regulations and limitations are bad and simply evil barriers to firms manifest destiny.
Don’t put much stock in it.
It would have been significantly better if they announced publicly that JPM was going to have it's growth restricted because of reason X. This would have acted as a deterrent to other banks, sent a message to the public that the banks were indeed being punished, and avoided the image of a secret governance process.
Everyone who reads these publications is well aware of the financial disaster so it doesn't need to be reiterated on every article because the knowledge is assumed.
Most likely, and I say this as an opinion, several of the banks they bought in 2008 were restricted from expanding until their house was in order.
These moves were, with 100% certainty, would have been announced and published at inception.
And no, the meaning of "financial disaster" is VERY different depending on which side of Fin services you stand on.
To many banks and bankers, the debacle is a failure of market participants - the cost of living in such exalted times. More regulation would only hamper future efficiency and delicious growth to shareholders.
For main street, this was a watershed moment where they saw that banks were a force unto themselves.
Their market niche so critical, that letting them continue more necessary than justice - overturning a basic tenet of American expectations (bad firms fail, merit rises).
"too big to fail", is the shadow of "too big to care".
Main street does not read Bloomberg or WSJ, so they tailor their articles to their audience's bias.
The whole "unwritten rule" thing is kinda nonsense. The OCC which was preventing the expansion was chartered to ensure the soundness of the banking system. That is pretty arbitrary and they have the authority to arbitrate on that. That sounds like they can use their discretion.
What you would think would not happen in America is that the government bails out private banks that behaved badly. If it were truly American capitalism they would fail. Banks would then not be able to become so large due to people and banks not wanting to have too much liability with any one institution. So it is inconsistent to have a system where the government cannot use their discretion in the growth of banks, yet be on the line for a huge bailout to stop the economy from collapsing when the banks get too greedy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Comptroller_of_t...