R. Alton Gilbert describes six of the major proposals for restructuring the financial system and examines how they might affect the returns to shareholders of banking organizations as well as the potential losses to federal deposit insurance funds. Examining various methods of combining a hypothetical bank and nonbanking firm in the same corporation leads the author to conclude that, under certain conditions, the expected loss to the insurance funds is smaller if banks offer nonbanking services directly, rather than through separate corporate entities. Gilbert also concludes that loans by bank subsidiaries to their nonbank affiliates generally are not in the interest of the bank holding company.