Portal:Banks

The Banks and Banking Portal

The Bank of England, established in 1694

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...)

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Selected banking articles

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Investment banking is an advisory-based financial service for institutional investors, corporations, governments, and similar clients. Traditionally associated with corporate finance, such a bank might assist in raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of debt or equity securities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provide ancillary services such as market making, trading of derivatives and equity securities FICC services (fixed income instruments, currencies, and commodities) or research (macroeconomic, credit or equity research). Most investment banks maintain prime brokerage and asset management departments in conjunction with their investment research businesses. As an industry, it is broken up into the Bulge Bracket (upper tier), Middle Market (mid-level businesses), and boutique market (specialized businesses).

Unlike commercial banks and retail banks, investment banks do not take deposits. The revenue model of an investment bank comes mostly from the collection of fees for advising on a transaction, contrary to a commercial or retail bank. From the passage of Glass–Steagall Act in 1933 until its repeal in 1999 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, the United States maintained a separation between investment banking and commercial banks. Other industrialized countries, including G7 countries, have historically not maintained such a separation. As part of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd–Frank Act of 2010), the Volcker Rule asserts some institutional separation of investment banking services from commercial banking. (Full article...)
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A cheque with Thomas Jefferson as payee and payor from 1809

A cheque (or check in American English) is a document that orders a bank, building society, or credit union, to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The person writing the cheque, known as the drawer, has a transaction banking account (often called a current, cheque, chequing, checking, or share draft account) where the money is held. The drawer writes various details including the monetary amount, date, and a payee on the cheque, and signs it, ordering their bank, known as the drawee, to pay the amount of money stated to the payee.

Although forms of cheques have been in use since ancient times and at least since the 9th century, they became a highly popular non-cash method for making payments during the 20th century and usage of cheques peaked. By the second half of the 20th century, as cheque processing became automated, billions of cheques were issued annually; these volumes peaked in or around the early 1990s. Since then cheque usage has fallen, being replaced by electronic payment systems, such as debit cards and credit cards. In an increasing number of countries cheques have either become a marginal payment system or have been completely phased out. (Full article...)
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An industrial loan company (ILC) or industrial bank is a financial institution in the United States that lends money, and may be owned by non-financial institutions. They provide niche financial services nationwide. ILCs offer FDIC-insured deposits and are subject to FDIC and state regulator oversight. All "FDIC-insured entities are subject to Sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act, which limits bank transactions with affiliates, including the non-bank parent company." ILCs are permitted to have branches in multiple states (which is permitted by many states on a reciprocal basis). They are regulated and supervised by state charters and insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. They are authorized to make consumer and commercial loans and accept federally insured deposits. Banks may not accept demand deposits if the bank has total assets greater than $100 million. ILCs are exempted from the Bank Holding Company Act.

ILCs assist numerous charities and provide millions of dollars annually in grants, low interest loans, and service through the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Currently, only seven states offer an ILC bank charter. Most ILCs have been chartered by the Utah Department of Financial Institutions. Other states permitting ILCs include California, Colorado, Minnesota, Indiana, Hawaii, and Nevada. (Full article...)
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Electronic bill payment is a feature of online, mobile and telephone banking, similar in its effect to a giro, allowing a customer of a financial institution to transfer money from their transaction or credit card account to a creditor or vendor such as a public utility, department store or an individual to be credited against a specific account. These payments are typically executed electronically as a direct deposit through a national payment system, operated by the banks or in conjunction with the government. Payment is typically initiated by the payer but can also be set up as a direct debit.

In addition to the bill payment facility, most banks will also offer various features with their electronic bill payment systems. These include the ability to schedule payments in advance to be made on a specified date (convenient for installments such as mortgage and support payments), to save the biller information for reuse at a future time and various options for searching the recent payment history. In many cases the payment data can also be downloaded and posted directly into the customer's accounting or personal finance software. (Full article...)
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World map showing real GDP growth rates for 2009; countries in brown were in a recession.

The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009, overlapping with the closely related 2008 financial crisis. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At the time, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded that it was the most severe economic and financial meltdown since the Great Depression.

The causes of the Great Recession include a combination of vulnerabilities that developed in the financial system, along with a series of triggering events that began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble in 2005–2012. When housing prices fell and homeowners began to abandon their mortgages, the value of mortgage-backed securities held by investment banks declined in 2007–2008, causing several to collapse or be bailed out in September 2008. This 2007–2008 phase was called the subprime mortgage crisis. (Full article...)
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The Rhode Island banking crisis took place in the early 1990s, when approximately a third of the U.S. state of Rhode Island's population lost access to funds in their bank accounts. The events were triggered by the failure of a Providence bank, Heritage Loan & Investment, due to long-term embezzlement by its president. News of its problems led to a bank run in which customers tried to withdraw money from the bank which did not have enough money available. In normal circumstances, depositors would be protected by the bank's insurance, but the state's private insurer had a long history of problems and was unable to fulfill its commitments. When the insurer collapsed, Governor Bruce Sundlun announced the closure of 45 credit unions and banks just hours after his inauguration.

In the first banking emergency in the state since the Great Depression, 300,000 depositors lost access to their money. Though some of the institutions reopened relatively quickly after obtaining federal insurance, many did not qualify and remained closed for an extended period of time. The state government set up an agency to manage the crisis, selling $697 million in bonds to repay people while filing about 300 lawsuits against the closed institutions and other companies that played a role in the crisis. (Full article...)
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The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers (headquarters pictured), the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch), on September 15, 2008, is often considered the climax of the 2008 financial crisis.

The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners and financial institutions that led to the 2000s United States housing bubble, exacerbated by predatory lending for subprime mortgages and deficiencies in regulation. Cash out refinancings had fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined. The first phase of the crisis was the subprime mortgage crisis, which began in early 2007, as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to U.S. real estate, and a vast web of derivatives linked to those MBS, collapsed in value. A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which triggered a stock market crash and bank runs in several countries. The crisis exacerbated the Great Recession, a global recession that began in mid-2007, as well as the United States bear market of 2007–2009. It was also a contributor to the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis and the euro area crisis.

During the 1990s, the U.S. Congress had passed legislation that intended to expand affordable housing through looser financing rules, and in 1999, parts of the 1933 Banking Act (Glass–Steagall Act) were repealed, enabling institutions to mix low-risk operations, such as commercial banking and insurance, with higher-risk operations such as investment banking and proprietary trading. As the Federal Reserve ("Fed") lowered the federal funds rate from 2000 to 2003, institutions increasingly targeted low-income homebuyers, largely belonging to racial minorities, with high-risk loans; this development went unattended by regulators. As interest rates rose from 2004 to 2006, the cost of mortgages rose and the demand for housing fell; in early 2007, as more U.S. subprime mortgage holders began defaulting on their repayments, lenders went bankrupt, culminating in the bankruptcy of New Century Financial in April. As demand and prices continued to fall, the financial contagion spread to global credit markets by August 2007, and central banks began injecting liquidity. In March 2008, Bear Stearns, the fifth largest U.S. investment bank, was sold to JPMorgan Chase in a "fire sale" backed by Fed financing. (Full article...)
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In American finance, the FDIC problem bank list is a confidential list created and maintained by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation which lists banks that are in jeopardy of failing. The list is closely monitored, and if problems continue with a listed bank, the FDIC takes control of the bank; it may then sell the problem bank to a stronger one, or liquidate the bank and pay off the depositors. (Full article...)
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A universal bank is a type of bank which participates in many kinds of banking activities and is both a commercial bank and an investment bank as well as providing other financial services such as insurance. These are also called full-service financial firms, although there can also be full-service investment banks which provide wealth and asset management, trading, underwriting, researching as well as financial advisory.

The concept is most relevant in the United Kingdom and the United States, where historically there was a distinction drawn between pure investment banks and commercial banks. In the US, this was a result of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933. In both countries, however, since the 1980s the regulatory barrier to the combination of investment banks and commercial banks has largely been removed, and a number of universal banks have emerged in both jurisdictions. (Full article...)
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Private banking is a general description for banking, investment and other financial services provided by banks and financial institutions primarily serving high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) – those with very high income or substantial assets. Private banking is presented by those who provide such services as an exclusive subset of wealth management services, provided to particularly affluent clients. The term "private" refers to customer service rendered on a more personal basis than in mass-market retail banking, usually provided via dedicated bank advisers. It has typically consisted of banking services (deposit taking and payments), discretionary asset management, brokerage, limited tax advisory services and some basic concierge services, typically offered through a gateway provided by a single designated relationship manager. (Full article...)

Selected banks

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Since 2010, Crédit Agricole has been headquartered in a remodeled former Schlumberger plant in Paris, known as Campus Evergreen

Crédit Agricole Group (French: [kʁedi aɡʁikɔl]), sometimes called La banque verte (pronounced [la bɑ̃k vɛʁt], lit. 'The green bank', due to its historical ties to farming), is a French international banking group and the world's largest cooperative financial institution. It is the second largest bank in France, after BNP Paribas, as well as the third largest in Europe and tenth largest in the world. It consists of a network of Crédit Agricole local banks, 39 Agricole regional banks and a central institute, the Crédit Agricole S.A.. It is listed through Crédit Agricole S.A., as an intermediate holding company, on Euronext Paris' first market and is part of the CAC 40 stock market index. Local banks of the group owned the regional banks, in turn the regional banks majority owned the S.A. via a holding company, in turn the S.A. owned part of the subsidiaries of the group, such as LCL, the Italian network and the CIB unit. It is considered to be a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board.

It was the title sponsor of the Crédit Agricole professional road cycling team from 1998 to 2008. (Full article...)
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The Abbey National Building Society was formed in 1944 by the merger of the Abbey Road and the National building societies.

It was the first building society in the United Kingdom to demutualise, doing so in July 1989. The bank expanded through a number of acquisitions in the 1990s, including James Hay, Scottish Mutual, Scottish Provident and the rail leasing company Porterbrook. Abbey National launched an online bank, Cahoot, in June 2000. (Full article...)
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BNP Paribas (French pronunciation: [beɛnpe paʁiba]; sometimes referred to as BNPP or BNP) is a French multinational universal bank and financial services holding company headquartered in Paris. It was founded in 2000 from the merger of two of France's foremost financial institutions, Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) and Paribas. It also incorporates many other major institutions through successive acquisitions, including Fortis Bank in Belgium, Direkt Anlage Bank in Germany, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in Italy, Banque Générale du Luxembourg in Luxembourg, and Türk Ekonomi Bankası in Turkey. The group has also been present in the United States through its subsidiaries Bank of the West until 2023 and First Hawaiian Bank until 2019. With 190,000 employees, the bank is organized into three major business areas: Commercial, Personal Banking & Services (CPBS); Investment & Protection Services (IPS); and Corporate & Institutional Banking (CIB).

BNP Paribas is listed on Euronext Paris and is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. It is the second largest bank in Europe and eighth largest bank in the world by total assets. It became one of the five largest banks in the world following the 2008 financial crisis. It is considered a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board. In the Forbes Global 2000, BNP Paribas was ranked as the 33rd largest public company in the world. It has been designated as a Significant Institution since the entry into force of European Banking Supervision in late 2014, and as a consequence is directly supervised by the European Central Bank. (Full article...)
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Bank of Communications (BOCOM or BankComm) is a Chinese multinational banking and financial services corporation. It was originally established in 1908 and was one of a handful of domestic Chinese banks that issued banknotes in modern history. Following the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, the mainland operation of that bank were merged into the People's Bank of China and People's Construction Bank of China under the Communist single-tier banking system, while its continuation in Taiwan eventually became part of Mega International Commercial Bank.

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...)
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Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG; 株式会社三菱UFJフィナンシャル・グループ, Kabushiki gaisha Mitsubishi Yūefujei Finansharu Gurūpu) is a Japanese bank holding and financial services company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. MUFG was created in 2005 by merger between Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group (株式会社三菱東京フィナンシャル・グループ, Kabushiki kaisha mitsubishi tōkyō finansharu gurūpu) and UFJ Holdings (株式会社UFJホールディングス; kabushikigaisha yūefujei hōrudingusu). These two groups in turn brought together multiple predecessor banks including Mitsubishi Bank (est. 1880), Yokohama Specie Bank (est. 1880 as a policy bank, reorganized after World War II as Bank of Tokyo), Sanwa Bank (est. 1933 by merger of prior institutions), and Tokai Bank (est. 1941 by merger).

MUFG holds assets of around US$2.7 trillion as of 2024 and is the parent company of fully-owned MUFG Bank (branded Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ or BTMU until July 2018), Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and MUFG Americas Holdings Corporation; majority shareholder of Bank Danamon in Indonesia, Bank of Ayudhya in Thailand, and Mitsubishi UFJ NICOS in Japan; and a large minority shareholder in the Master Trust Bank of Japan, Morgan Stanley in the United States, Security Bank in the Philippines, and Vietinbank in Vietnam. It retains strong links with the Mitsubishi Group and is often described as one of that group’s "Three Great Houses", together with Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. (Full article...)
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Shinhan Bank Co., Ltd. (Korean: 주식회사 신한은행; RR: Jusikhoesa Sinhan Eunhaeng) is a South-Korean bank headquartered in Seoul. It was founded under this name in 1982, but through its merger with Chohung Bank in 2006, traces its origins to the Hanseong Bank (est. 1897), one of the first banks to be established in Korea. It is part of the Shinhan Financial Group, along with Jeju Bank.
As of 2016^[update], Shinhan Bank had total assets of ₩298.945 trillion (equivalent to ₩304.658 trillion or US$269.507 billion in 2017)^[1], total deposits of ₩221.047 trillion (equivalent to ₩225.271 trillion or US$199.28 billion in 2017)^[1] and loans of ₩212.228 trillion (equivalent to ₩216.283 trillion or US$191.329 billion in 2017)^[1]. Shinhan Bank is the main subsidiary of Shinhan Financial Group (SFG). (Full article...)
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Citigroup Inc. or Citi (stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company based in New York City. The company was formed in 1998 by the merger of Citicorp, the bank holding company for Citibank, and Travelers; Travelers was spun off from the company in 2002.

Citigroup is the third-largest banking institution in the United States by assets; alongside JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, it is one of the Big Four banking institutions of the United States. It is considered a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board, and is commonly cited as being "too big to fail". It is one of the eight global investment banks in the Bulge Bracket. Citigroup is ranked 36th on the Fortune 500, and was ranked #24 in Forbes Global 2000 in 2023. (Full article...)
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The Bank of America Corporation (Bank of America) (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, with investment banking and auxiliary headquarters in Manhattan. The bank was founded by the merger of NationsBank and Bank of America in 1998. It is the second-largest banking institution in the United States and the second-largest bank in the world by market capitalization, both after JPMorgan Chase. Bank of America is one of the Big Four banking institutions of the United States. and one of eight systemically important financial institutions in the US. It serves about 10 percent of all American bank deposits, in direct competition with JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. Its primary financial services revolve around commercial banking, wealth management, and investment banking.
Through mergers, the oldest branch of the Bank of America franchise can be traced to 1784, when Massachusetts Bank was chartered, the first federally chartered joint-stock owned bank in the United States. Another branch of its history goes back to the U.S.-based Bank of Italy, founded by Amadeo Pietro Giannini in 1904, which provided various banking options to Italian immigrants who faced service discrimination. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Giannini acquired Banca d'America e d'Italia, in 1922 and eventually did business as Bank of America.

In the 1950s, passage of landmark federal banking legislation facilitated rapid growth, quickly establishing prominent shares for the present bank's predecessors. After suffering significant losses during the 1998 Russian financial crisis, BankAmerica, as it was then known, was acquired by the Charlotte-based NationsBank for $62 billion. Following what was then the largest bank acquisition in history, the Bank of America Corporation was founded. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, it built upon its commercial banking business by establishing Merrill Lynch for wealth management and Bank of America Merrill Lynch for investment banking in 2008 and 2009, respectively, and since renamed BofA Securities. (Full article...)
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ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is the third-largest Dutch bank, with headquarters in Amsterdam. It was initially formed in 1991 by merger of the two prior Dutch banks that form its name, Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN) and Amsterdamsche en Rotterdamsche Bank (AMRO Bank).

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...)
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The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Russian: Центральный банк Российской Федерации), commonly known as the Bank of Russia (Russian: Банк России), also called the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), is the central bank of the Russian Federation. The bank was established on 13 July 1990. It traces its beginnings to the State Bank of the Russian Empire established in 1860.

The bank is headquartered on Neglinnaya Street in Moscow. Its functions are described in the Constitution of Russia (Article 75), as well as in federal law. (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?
... that the Bank of Korea asked the makers of a cheese-filled waffle to change its design?

Related portals

Selected images

Image 1Banco de Venezuela in Coro. (from Bank)
Image 2Government Palace in Helsinki, the Bank's home from 1824 until relocation to its current building in 1883 (from Bank of Finland)
Image 3Branch of Nepal Bank in Pokhara, Western Nepal. (from Bank)
Image 4Rotterdam head office [nl], later repurposed as a shopping center (from AMRO Bank)
Image 5An American bank in Maryland. (from Bank)
Image 6The BANK of Greenland, Nuuk (from Bank)
Image 7Global headquarters of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel (from Bank)
Image 8Standard Bank of Canada branch in Brechin, Ontario. Empty as of 2014, the building was later used as a Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce branch, until they moved to the other side of the street. (from Standard Bank of Canada)
Image 9Former branch in Oulu (from Bank of Finland)
Image 10Carved sign for The Standard Bank of Canada, in Brechin, Ontario. (from Standard Bank of Canada)
Image 11An office of Nordea bank in Mariehamn, Åland (from Bank)
Image 12National Copper Bank, Salt Lake City 1911 (from Bank)
Image 13OTP Bank in Prešov (Slovakia) (from Bank)
Image 14Large door to an old bank vault. (from Bank)
Image 15The bank's 1890 head office, designed by Richard Alfred Waite. It was demolished in 1928 to make way for the bank's new headquarters. (from Canadian Bank of Commerce)
Image 16ATM Al-Rajhi Bank (from Bank)
Image 17Citibank, The People's Trust Company Building, Brooklyn, New York City. (from Bank)
Image 18Statesman 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 19A Banco do Brasil office in São Paulo, Brazil, the bank is the largest financial institution in Brazil and Latin America. (from Bank)
Image 20Sederholm House [fi] in Helsinki, the Bank's seat from 1819 to 1824 (from Bank of Finland)
Image 21The HSBC Canada Building in Vancouver housed the headquarters for HSBC's Canadian subsidiary (from HSBC Bank Canada)
Image 22Helsinki head office extension designed by Harry W. Schreck [fi] in the late 1950s (from Bank of Finland)
Image 23Amsterdam head office before 1987, lately headquarters of Booking.com (from AMRO Bank)
Image 24An illustration of Northern National Bank as advertized in a 1921 book highlighting the opportunities available in Toledo, Ohio (from Bank)
Image 25The Bank's current head office completed in 1883, with statue of J.V. Snellman by sculptor Emil Wikström in front (from Bank of Finland)
Image 26Branch of the Standard Bank of Canada in Markham, Ontario, shown in 1912. (from Standard Bank of Canada)
Image 27Former branch in Turku (from Bank of Finland)
Image 28A former building society, now a modern retail bank in Leeds, West Yorkshire. (from Bank)
Image 29Safra National Bank, New York (from Bank)
Image 30National Bank of the Republic, Salt Lake City 1908 (from Bank)
Image 31Suburban bank branch (from Bank)
Image 32Former branch in Sortavala, now in Russia (from Bank of Finland)
Image 33An HSBC Bank Canada branch in Richmond Hill, Ontario, 2014 (from HSBC Bank Canada)
Image 34Beethovenstraat branch in Amsterdam, 1970 (from AMRO Bank)
Image 35Former branch [fi] in Tampere (from Bank of Finland)
Image 36From 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)
Image 37SEB main building in Tallinn, Estonia (from Bank)
Image 38Bank of Finland strong box which moved to Helsinki with the bank when it relocated from Turku (from Bank of Finland)
Image 39The 1909 Standard Bank Building at King and Jordan in Toronto, designed by Darling and Pearson. (from Standard Bank of Canada)
Image 40Former branch in Viipuri, now Vyborg, Russia (from Bank of Finland)
Image 41Interior of the Helsinki Branch of the Vyborg-Bank [fi] in the 1910s (from Bank)
Image 42Sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694), by Lady Jane Lindsay, 1905. (from Bank)
Image 43This 15th-century painting depicts money-dealers at a banca (bench) during the Cleansing of the Temple. (from Bank)
Image 44Commerce Tower in Montreal, designed by Peter Dickinson, was begun for the Bank of Commerce but was not completed until after the merger with the Imperial Bank. (from Canadian Bank of Commerce)
Image 45Former branch in Kotka (from Bank of Finland)
Image 46An HSBC Bank Canada branch in Toronto, 2008 (from HSBC Bank Canada)
Image 47An interior of a branch of National Westminster Bank on Castle Street, Liverpool (from Bank)

In the news

29 May 2025 – Economy of South Korea: South Korea’s central bank cuts its key interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.5%, marking its fourth cut since October, and sharply lowered its 2025 growth forecast to 0.8%, nearly halving the previous projection of 1.5% announced in February after a monetary policy meeting. Share prices rise following the report, with the Kospi gaining 1.7%. (AP)
29 May 2025 – Corruption in Slovakia: Slovakia’s central bank chief, Peter Kažimír, a member of the European Central Bank committee, is convicted of bribery and fined 200,000 euros. The verdict was issued by Judge Milan Cisarik at the Special Criminal Court in Pezinok. (AP)