One of Wal-Mart's opponents, the Independent Community Bankers of America, worries that the giant retailer intends to open retail branch banks in its stores. That would drive community banks out of business, they claim, much as Wal-Mart has destroyed smaller retailing competitors in towns across America.

Wal-Mart insists, however, that it has no such intention, that it merely wants to process credit-card payments in-house and pass those savings on to customers. Because other large nonbanking firms perform similar niche services through their industrial banks, we see no reason why Wal-Mart should be denied that opportunity.

Perhaps Wal-Mart's charter could be limited to the proposed credit-card service.

Our larger worry, however, is that a Wal-Mart bank would represent a further erosion of the wall that once prevented commercial, retail and manufacturing companies from owning banks. Since a change in federal banking law in 1987, that wall has become little more than a speed bump. We continue to fret that cross-ownership issues that contributed to bank failures in the Great Depression could rise again.

The defenders of industrial banks, including this state's commissioner of financial institutions, claim those fears are unfounded, that the Utah-chartered industrial banks are adequately regulated by the FDIC and the state, and that none of them has ever failed.

But because industrial banks are exempt from regulation under the Bank Holding Company Act, which brings the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission into the picture, we worry.

The FDIC says it will use the six months to examine the industrial bank industry for emerging safety issues and to see if policies or laws need to be changed. The industry should welcome this scrutiny, particularly if nagging doubts can be laid to rest.