*  *  *  As important as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act has been to American banking--codifying the new realities of the marketplace--I would argue that the 1988 Basel Capital Accord brought about an even more dramatic change in banking rules of the game.
In the late 1980s, as the Congress struggled unsuccessfully to reach agreement on a plan for managing interstate banking, the banking regulators of the Group of Ten (G-10) countries were able to develop a common set of rules for bank capital. What is referred to now as Basel I established a competitive balance among the banking systems of the major industrialized countries.