A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
As banks play an important role in financial stability and the economy of a country, most jurisdictions exercise a high degree of regulation over banks. Most countries have institutionalized a system known as fractional-reserve banking, under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, the Basel Accords. (Full article...)
UML class diagram depicting retail banking Retail banking, also known as consumer banking or personal banking, is the provision of services by a bank to the general public, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks, which are often described as wholesale banking (corporate banking).
The 2010 United States foreclosure crisis, sometimes referred to as Foreclosure-gate or Foreclosuregate, refers to a widespread epidemic of improper foreclosures initiated by large banks and other lenders. The foreclosure crisis was extensively covered by news outlets beginning in October 2010, and several large banks—including Bank of America, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup—responded by halting their foreclosure proceedings temporarily in some or all states. The foreclosure crisis caused significant investor fear in the U.S. A 2014 study published in the American Journal of Public Health linked the foreclosure crisis to an increase in suicide rates.
One out of every 248 households in the United States received a foreclosure notice in September 2012, according to RealtyTrac. (Full article...)
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The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, (Pub. L.106–102 (text)(PDF), 113 Stat.1338, enacted November 12, 1999) is an act of the 106th United States Congress (1999–2001). It repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, removing barriers in the market among banking companies, securities companies, and insurance companies that prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company. With the passage of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies were allowed to consolidate. Furthermore, it failed to give to the SEC or any other financial regulatory agency the authority to regulate large investment bank holding companies. The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
A year before the law was passed, Citicorp, a commercial bank holding company, merged with the insurance company Travelers Group in 1998 to form the conglomerate Citigroup, a corporation combining banking, securities and insurance services under a house of brands that included Citibank, Smith Barney, Primerica, and Travelers. Because this merger was a violation of the Glass–Steagall Act and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, the Federal Reserve gave Citigroup a temporary waiver in September 1998. Less than a year later, GLBA was passed to legalize these types of mergers on a permanent basis. The law also repealed Glass–Steagall's conflict of interest prohibitions "against simultaneous service by any officer, director, or employee of a securities firm as an officer, director, or employee of any member bank." (Full article...)
Private banks are banks owned by either the individual or a general partner(s) with limited partner(s). Private banks are not incorporated. In any such case, creditors can look to both the "entirety of the bank's assets" as well as the entirety of the sole-proprietor's/general-partners' assets.
A mutual savings bank is a financial institution chartered by a central or regional government, without capital stock, owned by its members who subscribe to a common fund. From this fund, claims, loans, etc., are paid. Profits after deductions are shared among the members. The institution is intended to provide a safe place for individual members to save and to invest those savings in mortgages, loans, stocks, bonds and other securities and to share in any profits or losses that result. (Full article...)
Other areas of ethical consumerism, such as fair trade labelling, have comprehensive codes and regulations which must be adhered to in order to be certified. Ethical banking has not developed to this point; because of this it is difficult to create a concrete definition that distinguishes ethical banks from conventional banks. Ethical banks are regulated by the same authorities as traditional banks and have to abide by the same rules. While there are differences between ethical banks, they do share a desire to uphold principles in the projects they finance, the most frequent including: transparency and social and/or environmental values. Ethical banks sometimes work with narrower profit margins than traditional ones, and therefore they may have few offices and operate mostly by phone, Internet, or mail. Ethical banking is considered one of several forms of alternative banking. (Full article...)
The ECB Governing Council makes monetary policy for the Eurozone and the European Union, administers the foreign exchange reserves of EU member states, engages in foreign exchange operations, and defines the intermediate monetary objectives and key interest rate of the EU. The ECB Executive Board enforces the policies and decisions of the Governing Council, and may direct the national central banks when doing so. The ECB has the exclusive right to authorise the issuance of euro banknotes. Member states can issue euro coins, but the volume must be approved by the ECB beforehand. The bank also operates the T2 (RTGS) payments system. (Full article...)
Following aggressive international expansion, ABN AMRO was acquired and broken up in 2007–2008 by a consortium of European banks, including Fortis which intended to take over its formed operations in the Benelux region. Fortis came under stress in the autumn of 2008, and was in turn broken up into separate national entities; the Dutch operations, namely Fortis Bank Nederland and the former ABN AMRO activities that Fortis had planned to absorb, were nationalized, restructured, and renamed ABN AMRO in mid-2010. On 20 November 2015, the Dutch government publicly re-listed the company through an IPO and sold 20 percent of the shares to the public. (Full article...)
In Canada, the bank's personal and commercial banking operations are branded as RBC Royal Bank in English and RBC Banque Royale in French and serves approximately 11 million clients through its network of 1,284 branches. RBC Bank is a US banking subsidiary which formerly operated 439 branches across six states in the Southeastern United States, but now only offers cross-border banking services to Canadian travellers and expats. RBC's other Los Angeles-based US subsidiary City National Bank operates 79 branches across 11 US states. RBC also has 127 branches across seventeen countries in the Caribbean, which serve more than 16 million clients. RBC Capital Markets is RBC's worldwide investment and corporate banking subsidiary, while the investment brokerage firm is known as RBC Dominion Securities. Investment banking services are also provided through RBC Bank and the focus is on middle market clients. The company expanded further in 2024 when RBC acquired HSBC's Canadian operations. (Full article...)
In the years leading up to the failure, Bear Stearns was heavily involved in securitization and issued large amounts of asset-backed securities which were, in the case of mortgages, pioneered by Lewis Ranieri, "the father of mortgage securities." As investor losses mounted in those markets in 2006 and 2007, the company actually increased its exposure, especially to the mortgage-backed assets that were central to the subprime mortgage crisis. In March 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York provided an emergency loan to try to avert a sudden collapse of the company. The company could not be saved, however, and was sold to JPMorgan Chase for $10 per share, a price far below its pre-crisis 52-week high of $133.20 per share, but not as low as the $2 per share originally agreed upon. (Full article...)
Credit Suisse was founded in 1856 to fund the development of Switzerland's rail system. It issued loans that helped create Switzerland's electrical grid and the European rail system. In the 1900s, it began shifting to retail banking in response to the elevation of the middle class and competition from fellow Swiss banks UBS and Julius Bär. Credit Suisse partnered with First Boston in 1978 before buying a controlling share of the bank in 1988. From 1990 to 2000, the company purchased institutions such as Winterthur Group, Swiss Volksbank, Swiss American Securities Inc. (SASI), and Bank Leu. (Full article...)
In 1986, the Bank of Communications was revived in the mainland as a commercial credit institution. It was listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong in June 2005 and the Shanghai Stock Exchange in May 2007. The Bank was ranked No. 151 among the Fortune Global 500 in terms of operating income and No. 11 among the global top 1,000 banks in terms of Tier 1 capital rated by the London-based magazine The Banker. In 2023, the company was ranked 53rd in the Forbes Global 2000. (Full article...)
Did you know...
... that to raise funds for the Council of District Dumas, its chairman led an armed squad to storm the Moscow headquarters of the State Bank?
Image 22Statesman Jan van den Brink was instrumental in the merger of Amsterdamsche Bank and Rotterdamsche Bank in 1964, and remained on the bank's board until 1978 (from AMRO Bank)
Image 37From 1867 to 1890 the bank was headquartered at 59 Yonge Street. This was the 1852 Ross, Mitchell & Co. Building, designed by William Thomas. (from Canadian Bank of Commerce)
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![Image 2Helsinki head office extension designed by Harry W. Schreck [fi] in the late 1950s (from Bank of Finland)](/wiki/File:Bank_of_Finland,_Helsinki_-_DSC05358.JPG)
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![Image 27Rotterdam head office [nl], later repurposed as a shopping center (from AMRO Bank)](/wiki/File:Forum_Rotterdam_-_Rotterdamsche_Bank_2022_01.jpg)
![Image 31Interior of the Helsinki Branch of the Vyborg-Bank [fi] in the 1910s (from Bank)](/wiki/File:Pohjoismaiden_Osakepankin_Helsingin_sivukonttori.jpg)
![Image 34Sederholm House [fi] in Helsinki, the Bank's seat from 1819 to 1824 (from Bank of Finland)](/wiki/File:Sederholmin_talo.jpg)
![Image 35Former branch [fi] in Tampere (from Bank of Finland)](/wiki/File:Suomen_Pankin_talo_Tampere.jpg)
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