We find the same system, with only a slight difference, in French banking. For instance, one of the three biggest banks, the Crédit Lyonnais, has organised a financial information service, which permanently employs about 50 engineers, statisticians, economists, jurists, etc., at an upkeep cost of six or seven hundred thousand francs annually.
The service is in turn divided into eight sections, of which one deals with industrial establishments, another with general statistics, a third with railways and navigation, a fourth with funds, a fifth with financial relations, etc.37
The result is twofold: on the one hand a fusion, or, as N. I. Bukharin aptly calls it, a growing together, becoming more and more complete, between industrial and finance-capital; and on the other, a transformation of the banks into institutions of a truly "universal character." On this question we think we should quote the exact terms used by Jeidels, who has best studied the subject:
"After an examination of all their relations with industry," he writes, "we perceive the universal character of the financial establishments working on behalf of industry. Contrary to other kinds of banks, contrary to the requirements often laid down in text books—according to which banks ought to specialise in one kind of business or in one branch of industry so as not to lose a firm footing—the big banks are striving to make their industrial connections as varied and far-reaching as possible, and are tending to remedy the disproportion, that is to be seen in following up the history of certain banks, in the distribution of capital between areas and branches of industry. . .
