The financial services industry is transforming itself in unpredictable—and often contradictory—ways. At the same time that Sears Roebuck and Company was spinning off the Allstate Insurance Group and Dean Witter, Discover & Company, Sanford Weill at Commercial Credit Company was putting together a broad-based financial company that came to include the former Primerica Corporation, Smith Barney, Shearson Lehman Brothers, and Travelers Insurance Company. While NationsBank Corporation has broadened its product line considerably, State Street Bank & Trust Company has narrowed its focus primarily to servicing financial assets as a custodian and as an investment manager.
A version of this article appeared in the March–April 1996 issue of Harvard Business Review.