When banks abandoned American Samoa, the islands found a solution: public banks
&gt; To understand why banks are scaling back and why it causes American Samoa such pain, imagine a basic small-town bank. It takes in paychecks and other deposits from locals and uses them as reserves when lending to their neighbors, who then invest in property and businesses.<p>&gt; That model breaks down when banks span states or countries. The big banks with tiny branches in American Samoa are happy to take deposits from locals, but when it comes to lending that money back out, it makes cold, actuarial sense to focus on bigger, safer clients elsewhere.<p>This is another pretty good general argument against bank consolidation.  In addition to increasing economic fragility during crises, large banks also neglect real communities that need their services during the good times.