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I know little about this topic. Can you please help me understand. Wikipedia says the act applies to banks and securities, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glas

• snowwrestler 11y ago
  Under federal law a bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from consumers and businesses. If a financial institution is not accepting and holding deposits, it's not a bank. (This is greatly simplified but it's a key differentiator.) Laws are targeted toward different types of financial institutions. Glass-Steagall was a law that applied to banks, and prevented them from selling securities. But if a financial institution wasn't a bank, then Glass-Steagall did not apply to them. AIG did not hold deposits so it wasn't a bank. So no G-S. Edit: to help connect the dots--what I'm referring to above are technically called "commercial banks." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bank From the G-S page: "The term Glass–Steagall Act usually refers to four provisions of the U.S. Banking Act of 1933 that limited commercial bank securities activities and affiliations within commercial banks and securities firms." In general, different kinds of financial institutions are regulated by different regulatory agencies. This is as good a place to start as any: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_regulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_regulation