Copied from wikipedia because I'm lazy, and you could've googled this easily: > The separation of commercial and investment banking prevented securities firms

Copied from wikipedia because I'm lazy, and you could've googled this easily: > The separation of commercial and investment banking prevented securities firms and investment banks from taking deposits, and commercial Federal Reserve member banks from: * dealing in non-governmental securities for customers * investing in non-investment grade securities for themselves * underwriting or distributing non-governmental securities * affiliating (or sharing employees) with companies involved in such activities It prevented mergers and acquisitions which allowed the banks to become too big to fail.