Based on statistical data and other information, the article traces how the place of the United States of America in the world banking system was changing over the course of several decades. Such monitoring is carried out simultaneously at two levels: both in relation to the country as a whole, and to its most important cities. Research begins at the turn of the 1960s-1970s and extends to the present (the choice of the starting chronological point is determined by the fundamental shifts in the world economy that took place during that period, as well as by the emergence in 1970 of accessible and reliable statistical reports of an international scale). The set of quantitative indicators reflecting the ups and downs in the history of American banking business is considered in parallel with similar data for the main competing forces, namely Western Europe, Japan and China. The measurements show that in the 1970s and 1980s the share of the United States in the global banking was usually declining. The centre of credit activity then moved to Japan and partly to Europe. Such shifts were explained by both the relatively slow development of the US economy and a number of legal restrictions that American banks faced within their own country. Reforming of the national financial sector, carried out in several stages during the 1980s - 1990s, yielded contradictory but mostly positive results. From 1994-1995, US shares in the global banking began to rise, and then stabilized at relatively high levels. The American successes, for all their moderation, seemed to be a significant achievement, given that even the most powerful newest factor, the enormously fast strengthening of China, could not block them. Positive changes for the United States were connected with the ability to modernize national legislation rather flexibly and quickly, as well as with the maintenance of significant internal competition between cities (in comparison with the more monopolized banking areas of Europe and the largest Asian countries).