When Is It in the "Public Interest" to Authorize a New Bank?

A 1977 article in this Review noted certain amendments to Virginia's Banking Act which introduced and defined the term "public interest" as the standard to be applied by the Virginia State Corporation Commission (hereinafter Commission) in regulating the expansion of the state-chartered banks and savings and loan associations in Virginia. That article summarized certain principles the Commission and the Virginia Supreme Court had applied under the former tests ("public need" and "public convenience and necessity"), and pointed out facts the Commission had considered significant in deciding those cases.