American Express

It looks like the best thing to do this days is to declare yourself a US Commercial Bank. Sweet deal!
Bloomberg article explains:

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- American Express Co. won Federal Reserve approval to convert to a commercial bank, gaining access to funds as credit losses build and sales of asset-backed bonds plummet.

The Fed waived a 30-day waiting period on the application ``in light of the unusual and exigent circumstances affecting the financial markets,'' according to a statement released today in Washington. Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues unanimously voted for the action.

Credit-card holders failed to repay loans in the third quarter at almost twice the rate of a year earlier, New York- based American Express said last month. With defaults rising along with the unemployment rate, October marked the first month since 1993 that card companies were unable to sell bonds backed by customer payments.

``That business has totally dried up,'' said Frederic Dickson, who helps oversee about $20 billion as chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon. ``If I were a shareholder, it wouldn't send a very warm and fuzzy message to me,'' he said today in a phone interview.

American Express, the largest U.S. credit-card company by purchases, joins former investment banks Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, which were allowed by the Fed in September to become commercial banks.
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"Given the continued volatility in the financial markets, we want to be best positioned to take advantage of the various programs the federal government has introduced,'' Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Chenault said in a statement today. "We will continue to build a larger deposit base to broaden our funding sources.''

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