The Obama administration is now ready to whip the banks' asses:

President Obama Calls for New Restrictions on Size and Scope of Financial Institutions to Rein in Excesses and Protect Taxpayers

The proposal would:
1. Limit the Scope - The President and his economic team will work with Congress to ensure that no bank or financial institution that contains a bank will own, invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or proprietary trading operations unrelated to serving customers for its own profit.
2. Limit the Size - The President also announced a new proposal to limit the consolidation of our financial sector. The President’s proposal will place broader limits on the excessive growth of the market share of liabilities at the largest financial firms, to supplement existing caps on the market share of deposits.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-calls-new-restrictions-size-and-scope-financial-institutions-rein-e

Ever since the financial market was created, market makers (investment banks) were positioned to arbitrage the information asymmetry and to game the system. It was the the academics who placed the aurora on the head of the surreptitious dealer whose actual well-being depended on the size of the gamble other people took. Well, how the investment banks came to this "To-Big-To-Fail" is a long story. This is a good book to read.

The point i want to make - Asian banks are as big as what they can get, what's making them not "Too-Big-To-Fail" down the road? Singapore banks house investment banking activity and deposit-taking/lending business under one roof. No doubt regulatory supervision is tighter here than US, is it the solution to excessive risk-seeking and conflict of interest? (Well neither DBS nor UOB are seen as risk-seeking banks at present, however let's not mix incompetence with good risk management. Assume one day Shenton Way become as competitive as Wall Street). I always have doubt when the banks talking into your face about "one-stop service" and "better customer solution" - just look at Citigroup. One-stop shop helps the bank more than the customer. The world will be a better place when hedge funds are hedge funds, investment banks are investment banks, commercial banks are commercial banks, research houses are research houses... Fortunately, for Chinese banks, the regulators separated investment banking business from commercial banks. When regulations aren't working - it won't work as much as you wanted in a world where laissez faire capitalism is at heart, break the banks up. Why not re-enact the Glass-Steagall Act?