Sweeping Financial Deregulation Bill Introduced
While Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan was urging Congress to repeal the Depression-era law that separates banking and securities activities, two senators went a step further yesterday and introduced legislation calling for total deregulation of financial services.</br></br>But critics said the proposal by Sens. Alfonse DÛªAmato (R-N.Y.) and Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) was so radical that it could prevent Congress from agreeing on any legislation to loosen the reins on banking. The D'A-mato-Cranston bill would allow banks to be affiliated with securities, real estate, insurance and manufacturing companies as long as deposits insured with federal funds were not used to finance those other companies.</br></br>A competing bill, introduced last month by Sens. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) and Jake Garn (R-Utah), would repeal only the 54-year-old Glass-Steagall bill, which bars most commercial banks from the riskiest activities involved in issuing, buying and selling stocks and bonds.</br></br>That bill would continue to keep banks out of most real estate and insurance activities and to prevent manufacturers and other nonfinan-cial companies from owning banks.</br></br>Greenspan told a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee yesterday that total deregulation should be considered only after Congress can