Melanie Fein has described how the consolidation of the banking and securities industries occurred in the 1990s, particularly after the Federal Reserve Board's actions in 1996 and 1997 increasing Section 20 "bank-ineligible" revenue limits and removing "firewalls." Fein stated that "[a]lthough the Gramm-Leach-Blily Act was expected to trigger a cascade of new consolidation proposals, no major mergers of banks and securities firms occurred in the years immediately following" and that the "consolidation trend resumed abruptly in 2008 as a result of the financial crisis" leading to all the large investment banks being acquired by, or converting into, bank holding companies. Fein noted the lack of consolidation activity after 1999 and before September 2008 was "perhaps because much of the consolidation had occurred prior to the Act."
