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...)
An offshore bank is a bank regulated under international banking license (often called offshore license), which usually prohibits the bank from establishing any business activities in the jurisdiction of establishment. Due to less regulation and transparency, accounts with offshore banks were often used to hide undeclared income. Since the 1980s, jurisdictions that provide financial services to nonresidents on a big scale, can be referred to as offshore financial centres. Since OFCs often also levy little or no tax corporate and/or personal income and offer, they are often referred to as tax havens.
an ordinary private bank which operates nationally (as opposed to regionally or locally or even internationally)
in the United States, an ordinary private bank operating within a specific regulatory structure, which may or may not operate nationally, under the supervision of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
An ATM card is a payment card or dedicated payment card issued by a financial institution (i.e. a bank) which enables a customer to access their financial accounts via its and others’ automated teller machines (ATMs) and to make approved point of purchase retail transactions (i.e. gas stations, grocery, hardware, department stores, etc.) ATM cards are not credit cards or debit cards. ATM cards are payment card size and style plastic cards with a magnetic stripe and/or a plastic smart card with a chip that contains a unique card number and some security information such as an expiration date or CVVC (CVV). ATM cards are known by a variety of names such as bank card, MAC (money access card), client card, key card or cash card, among others. Other payment cards, such as debit cards and credit cards can also function as ATM cards. Charge and proprietary cards cannot be used as ATM cards. The use of a credit card to withdraw cash at an ATM is treated differently to a POS transaction, usually attracting interest charges from the date of the cash withdrawal. Interbank networks allow the use of ATM cards at ATMs of private operators and financial institutions other than those of the institution that issued the cards.
ATM cards can also be used on improvised ATMs such as "mini ATMs", merchants' card terminals that deliver ATM features without any cash drawer. These terminals can also be used as cashless scrip ATMs by cashing the receipts they issue at the merchant's point of sale. (Full article...)
Transactions on deposit accounts are recorded in a bank's books, and the resulting balance is recorded as a liability of the bank and represents an amount owed by the bank to the customer. Some banks charge fees for transactions on a customer's account. Additionally, some banks pay customers interest on their account balances. (Full article...)
A credit card is different from a charge card, which requires the balance to be repaid in full each month or at the end of each statement cycle. In contrast, credit cards allow the consumers to build a continuing balance of debt, subject to interest being charged. A credit card also differs from a cash card, which can be used like currency by the owner of the card. A credit card differs from a charge card also in that a credit card typically involves a third-party entity that pays the seller and is reimbursed by the buyer, whereas a charge card simply defers payment by the buyer until a later date. In 2018, there were 1.122 billion credit cards in circulation in the U.S. (Full article...)
The Bank War was a political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the Second Bank of the United States (B.U.S.) during the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829–1837). The affair resulted in the shutdown of the Bank and its replacement by state banks.
The Second Bank of the United States was established as a private organization with a 20-year charter, having the exclusive right to conduct banking on a national scale. The goal behind the B.U.S. was to stabilize the American economy by establishing a uniform currency and strengthening the federal government. Supporters of the Bank regarded it as a stabilizing force in the economy due to its ability to smooth out variations in prices and trade, extend credit, supply the nation with a sound and uniform currency, provide fiscal services for the treasury department, facilitate long-distance trade, and prevent inflation by regulating the lending practices of state banks. Jacksonian Democrats cited instances of corruption and alleged that the B.U.S. favored merchants and speculators at the expense of farmers and artisans, appropriated public money for risky private investments and interference in politics, and conferred economic privileges on a small group of stockholders and financial elites, thereby violating the principle of equal opportunity. Some found the Bank's public–private organization to be unconstitutional, and argued that the institution's charter violated state sovereignty. To them, the Bank symbolized corruption while threatening liberty. (Full article...)
A branch of the Coastal Federal Credit Union in Raleigh, North Carolina
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned financial cooperative, controlled by its members and operated on a not-for-profit basis. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provision of credit, and other financial services.
Worldwide, credit union systems vary significantly in terms of total assets and average institution asset size, ranging from volunteer operations with a handful of members to institutions with hundreds of thousands of members and assets worth billions of US dollars. In 2018 the number of members in credit unions worldwide was 274 million, with nearly 40 million members being added since 2016. (Full article...)
Depositors "run" on a failing New York City bank in an effort to recover their money, July 1914
A bank failure occurs when a bank is unable to meet its obligations to its depositors or other creditors because it has become insolvent or too illiquid to meet its liabilities. More specifically, a bank usually fails economically when the market value of its assets declines to a value that is less than the market value of its liabilities. The insolvent bank either borrows from other solvent banks or sells its assets at a lower price than its market value to generate liquid money to pay its depositors on demand. The inability of the solvent banks to lend liquid money to the insolvent bank creates a bank panic among the depositors as more depositors try to take out cash deposits from the bank. As such, the bank is unable to fulfill the demands of all of its depositors on time. Also, a bank may be taken over by the regulating government agency if Shareholders Equity (i.e. capital ratios) are below the regulatory minimum.
The failure of a bank is generally considered to be of more importance than the failure of other types of business firms because of the interconnectedness and fragility of banking institutions. Research has shown that the market value of customers of the failed banks is adversely affected at the date of the failure announcements. It is often feared that the spill over effects of a failure of one bank can quickly spread throughout the economy and possibly result in the failure of other banks, whether or not those banks were solvent at the time as the marginal depositors try to take out cash deposits from these banks to avoid from suffering losses. Thereby, the spill over effect of bank panic or systemic risk has a multiplier effect on all banks and financial institutions leading to a greater effect of bank failure in the economy. As a result, banking institutions are typically subjected to rigorous regulation, and bank failures are of major public policy concern in countries across the world. (Full article...)
In the English language, banq and banc are coined words pronounced identically to the word "bank". Both terms have been adopted by financial services companies and others to satisfy legal restrictions on the usage of the word bank. The compoundbancorp (banc/bank + corp[oration]) is often used in the names of bank holding companies. For example, a hypothetical chartered bank named Bank of Manhattan might form a holding company named "Manhattan Bancorp", and a sister insurance business named "Banc of Manhattan Insurance". One well-known past example was Bank of America's investment banking entity, named Banc of America Securities (now part of Bank of America Merrill Lynch).
This practice originates from legal necessity: in the United States, the commerce departments of state governments generally prohibit or restrict the use of certain words in the names of corporations unless those corporations are legitimate chartered banks. For example, words prohibited by the state of Louisiana include bank, banker, banking, savings, safe deposit, trust, trustee, and credit union. (Full article...)
Wall Street was originally known in Dutch as "de Waalstraat" when it was part of New Amsterdam in the 17th century, though the origins of the name vary. An actual wall existed on the street from 1685 to 1699. During the 17th century, Wall Street was a slave trading marketplace and a securities trading site, as well as the location of Federal Hall, New York's first city hall. In the early 19th century, both residences and businesses occupied the area, but increasingly business predominated, and New York City's financial industry became centered on Wall Street. In the 20th century, several early skyscrapers were built on Wall Street, including 40 Wall Street, once the world's tallest building. (Full article...)
Fractional-reserve banking, the most common form of banking practiced by commercial banks worldwide, involves banks accepting deposits from customers and making loans to borrowers while holding in reserve an amount equal to only a fraction of the bank's deposit liabilities. Bank reserves are held as cash in the bank or as balances in the bank's account at a central bank. The country's central bank determines the minimum amount that banks must hold in liquid assets, called the "reserve requirement" or "reserve ratio". Banks usually hold more than this minimum amount, keeping excess reserves .
Bank deposits are usually of a relatively short-term duration while loans made by banks tend to be longer-term – this requires banks to hold reserves to provide liquidity when depositors withdraw their money. Banks, working on the expectation that only a proportion (or 'fraction') of depositors will seek to withdraw funds at the same time, keep only a fraction of their liabilities as reserves. Thus they can experience an unexpected bank run when depositors wish to withdraw more funds than the reserves held by the bank. In that event, the bank experiencing the liquidity shortfall may borrow from other banks in the interbank lending market; or (if there is a general lack of liquidity among the banks) the country's central bank may act as lender of last resort to provide banks with funds to cover this short-term shortfall.[need quotation to verify][need quotation to verify] (Full article...)
A cheque sample from Canada, 2006
A cheque, or check (American English; see spelling differences), is a document that orders a bank 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 or checking account) where their money is held. The drawer writes the 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 that person or company the amount of money stated.
Definition of a cheque as per The National Provincial Bank circa 1968 was "an unconditional order in writing drawn on a Banker, signed by the drawer, instructing the Banker to pay on demand a sum certain in money to or to the order of a specified person or to Bearer and which does not order any act to be done in addition to the payment of money". (Full article...)
A giro transfer, often shortened to giro (/ˈdʒaɪroʊ,ˈʒɪəroʊ/), is a payment transfer from one bank account to another bank account and initiated by the payer, not the payee. The debit card has a similar model. Giros are primarily used in Europe; although electronic payment systems such as the Automated Clearing House exist in the United States and Canada, it is not possible to perform third party transfers with them. In the European Union, there is the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) which allows electronic giro or debit card payments in euros to be executed to any euro bank account in the area. (Full article...)
According to the United States Electronic Fund Transfer Act of 1978 it is "a funds transfer initiated through an electronic terminal, telephone, computer (including on-line banking) or magnetic tape for the purpose of ordering, instructing, or authorizing a financial institution to debit or credit a consumer's account". (Full article...)
Bank Markazi v. Peterson, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case that found that a law which only applied to a specific case, identified by docket number, and eliminated all of the defenses one party had raised does not violate the separation of powers in the United States Constitution between the legislative (Congress) and judicial branches of government. The plaintiffs in the trial court, respondents in the Supreme Court, were several parties who had obtained judgments against Iran for its role in supporting state-sponsored terrorism, particularly the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings and 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, and sought execution against a bank account in New York held, through European intermediaries, on behalf of Bank Markazi, the state-ownedCentral Bank of Iran. The initial plaintiffs obtained court orders preventing the transfer of funds from the account in 2008 and initiated their lawsuit in 2010. Bank Markazi raised several defenses against the execution against the account, including that the account was not an asset of the bank, but rather an asset of its European intermediary, under both New York state property law and §201(a) of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. In response to concerns that existing laws were insufficient for the account to be used to settle the judgments, Congress included a section within a 2012 bill, codified after enactment as 22 U.S.C. § 8772, that identified the pending lawsuit by docket number, applied only to the assets in the identified case, and essentially abrogated every legal basis available to Bank Markazi to prevent the plaintiffs from executing their claims against the account. Bank Markazi then argued that § 8772 was an unconstitutional breach of the separation of power between the legislative and judicial branches of government, because it effectively directed a particular result in a single case without changing the generally applicable law. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and, on appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit both upheld the constitutionality of § 8772 and cleared the way for the plaintiffs to execute their judgments against the account, which held about $1.75 billion in cash.
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and heard oral arguments in the case in January 2016, releasing their opinion in April 2016. A 6–2 majority found that § 8772 was not unconstitutional, because it "changed the law by establishing new substantive standards"—essentially, that if Iran owns the assets, they would be available for execution against judgments against Iran—for the district court to apply to the case. JusticeRuth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, explained that the federal judiciary has long upheld laws that affect one or a very small number of subjects as a valid exercise of Congress' legislative power and that the Supreme Court had previously upheld a statute that applied to cases identified by docket number in Robertson v. Seattle Audubon Society (1992). The majority also upheld § 8772 as a valid exercise of Congress' authority over foreign affairs. Prior to the enactment of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) in 1976, Congress and the Executive branch had authority to determine the immunity of foreign states from lawsuits. Despite transferring the authority to determine immunity to the courts through the FSIA, the majority contended that "it remains Congress' prerogative to alter a foreign state's immunity." (Full article...)
The 100 point system applies to individuals opening new financial accounts in Australia, including bank accounts or betting accounts. Points are allocated to the types of documentary proof of identity that the person can produce, and they must have at least 100 points of identification to be able to operate an account. The system now also applies to the establishment of a number of official identity documents, such as an Australian passport and driving licence. (Full article...)
An export credit agency (known in trade finance as an ECA) or investment insurance agency is a private or quasi-governmental institution that acts as an intermediary between national governments and exporters to issue export insurance solutions, guarantees for financing. The financing can take the form of credits (financial support) or credit insurance and guarantees (pure cover) or both, depending on the mandate the ECA has been given by its government. ECAs can also offer credit or cover on their own account. This does not differ from normal banking activities. Some agencies are government-sponsored, others private, and others a combination of the two.
ECAs currently finance or underwrite about US$430 billion of business activity abroad - about US$55 billion of which goes towards project finance in developing countries - and provide US$14 billion of insurance for new foreign direct investment, dwarfing all other official sources combined (such as the World Bank and Regional Development Banks, bilateral and multilateral aid, etc.). As a result of the claims against developing countries that have resulted from ECA transactions, ECAs hold over 25% of these developing countries' US$2.2 trillion debt. (Full article...)
A time deposit or term deposit (in the United States also known as a certificate of deposit) is a deposit in a financial institution with a specific maturity date or a period to maturity, commonly referred to as its “term”. Time deposits differ from at call deposits, such as savings or checking accounts, which can be withdrawn at any time, without any notice or penalty. Deposits that require notice of withdrawal to be given are effectively time deposits, though they do not have a fixed maturity date.
Unlike a certificate of deposit and bonds, a time deposit is generally not negotiable; it is not transferable by the depositor, so that depositors need to deal with the financial institution when they need to prematurely cash out of the deposit. (Full article...)
An advising bank (also known as a notifying bank) advises a beneficiary (exporter) that a letter of credit (L/C) opened by an issuing bank for an applicant (importer) is available. An advising bank's responsibility is to authenticate the letter of credit issued by the issuer to avoid fraud. The advising bank is not necessarily responsible for the payment of the credit which it advises the beneficiary of. The advising bank is usually located in the beneficiary's country. It can be (1) a branch office of the issuing bank or a correspondent bank, or (2) a bank appointed by the beneficiary. An important point is the beneficiary has to be comfortable with the advising bank.
In case (1), the issuing bank most often sends the L/C through its branch office or correspondent bank to avoid fraud. The branch office or the correspondent bank maintains specimen signature(s) on file where it may counter-check the signature(s) on the L/C, and it has a coding system (a secret test key) to distinguish a genuine L/C from a fraudulent one (authentication). ('Full article...)
Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (株式会社みずほフィナンシャルグループ, Kabushiki-gaisha Mizuho Finansharu Gurūpu), abbreviated as MHFG, or simply called Mizuho, is a bankingholding company headquartered in the Ōtemachi district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The name "mizuho (瑞穂)" literally means "abundant rice" in Japanese and "harvest" in the figurative sense. Upon its founding, it was the largest bank in the world by assets.
It holds assets in excess of $1.8 trillion US dollars through its control of Mizuho Bank and other operating subsidiaries. The company's combined holdings form the third largest financial services group in Japan. Its banking businesses rank third in Japan after Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and SMBC Group. It is the 15th largest banking institution in the world by total assets as of December 2018. It is the 90th largest company in the world according to Forbes rankings as of May 2017. Its shares have a primary listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. (Full article...)
HSBC has around 3,900 offices in 65 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America, and around 38 million customers. As of 2014, it was the world's sixth-largest public company, according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine. (Full article...)
MUFG holds assets of around US$2,459 billion as of 2016 and is one of the main companies of the Mitsubishi Group. It is Japan's largest financial group and the world's second largest bank holding company holding around US$1.8 trillion (JPY 148 trillion) in deposits as of March 2011. The letters MUFG come from Mitsubishi and United Financial of Japan, the name of an acquired company. (Full article...)
ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is a Dutch bank with headquarters in Amsterdam. ABN AMRO Bank is the third-largest bank in the Netherlands. It was re-established in its current form in 2009, following the acquisition and break-up of the original ABN AMRO by a banking consortium consisting of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Santander Group and Fortis. Following the collapse of Fortis, who acquired the Dutch business, it was nationalized by the Dutch government along with Fortis Bank Nederland. It was relisted as a public company again in 2015.
The bank is a product of a long history of mergers and acquisitions that date to 1765. In 1991, Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN) and AMRO Bank (itself the result of a merger of the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank in the 1960s) agreed to merge to create the original ABN AMRO. By 2007, ABN AMRO was the second-largest bank in the Netherlands and the eighth-largest in Europe by assets. At that time the magazine The Banker and Fortune Global 500 placed it 15th in the list of world's biggest banks and it had operations in 63 countries, with over 110,000 employees. (Full article...)
The Laurentian Bank of Canada (LBC) (French: Banque Laurentienne du Canada) is a Schedule 1 bank that operates primarily in the province of Quebec, with commercial and business banking offices located in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia. LBC's Institution Number (or routing number) is 039. It is the only bank in North America with a labour union, although recent steps have been taken to revoke the accreditation. (Full article...)
The bank's network spans 58 countries with a large presence in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. As of 2017–2018, Deutsche Bank was the 21st largest bank in the world by total assets. As the largest German banking institution, it is a component of the DAX stock market index. (Full article...)
Chemical's logo, adopted from Manufacturers Hanover after the banks' merger
Chemical Bank was a bank with headquarters in New York City from 1824 until 1996. At the end of 1995, Chemical was the third-largest bank in the U.S., with about $182.9 billion in assets and more than 39,000 employees around the world.
Société Générale S.A. (French: [sɔ.sje.te ʒe.ne.ʁal]), often nicknamed "SocGen" (French: [sok ʒen]), is a French multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Paris, France. The company is a universal bank and has divisions supporting French Networks, Global Transaction Banking, International Retail Banking, Financial Services, Corporate and Investment Banking, Private Banking, Asset Management and Securities Services.
Société Générale is France's third largest bank by total assets, seventh largest in Europe or seventeenth by market capitalization. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50stock market index. It is known as one of the Trois Vieilles ("Old Three") of French banking, along with BNP Paribas and Crédit Lyonnais. (Full article...)
Today, it is an independent institution, and it has been a member of the Eurosystem of central banks since 1999. This consists of the European Central Bank (ECB), and the national central banks (NCBs) of all European Union (EU) members. Its three main missions, as defined by its statuses, are to drive the French monetary strategy, ensure financial stability and provide services to households, small and medium businesses and the French state. (Full article...)
Many subsidiaries, such as Abbey National, have been rebranded under the Santander name. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50stock market index. In May 2016, Santander was ranked as 37th in the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world's biggest public companies. Santander is Spain's largest bank. (Full article...)
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...)
Danske Bank A/S is a Danishbank. It was founded 5 October 1871 as Den Danske Landmandsbank, Hypothek- og Vexelbank i Kjøbenhavn (The Danish Farmers' Bank, Mortgage and Exchange Bank of Copenhagen). Headquartered in Copenhagen, it is the largest bank in Denmark and a major retail bank in the northern European region with over 5 million retail customers. Danske Bank was number 454 on the Fortune Global 500 list for 2011. The largest shareholder is A.P. Moller Holding connected to the Maersk family. (Full article...)
The ING Group (Dutch: ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. The three letters (ING) stand for "Internationale Nederlanden Groep". Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale banking, private banking, asset management, and insurance services. With total assets of US$1.1 trillion, it is one of the biggest banks in the world, and consistently ranks among the top 30 largest banks globally. It is among the top ten in the list of largest European companies by revenue.
ABC has 320 million retail customers, 2.7 million corporate clients, and nearly 24,000 branches. It is China's third largest lender by assets. ABC went public in mid-2010, fetching the world's biggest ever initial public offering (IPO) at the time, since overtaken by the Saudi Arabianstate-runpetroleum enterprise, Saudi Aramco. In 2011, it ranked eighth among the Top 1000 World Banks, by 2015, it ranked third in Forbes' 13th annual Global 2000 list and in 2017 it ranked fifth. (Full article...)
Its former constituent parts were the Commonwealth Trading Bank of Australia, the Commonwealth Savings Bank of Australia, and the Commonwealth Development Bank. (Full article...)
Citigroup Inc. or Citi (stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate Travelers Group in 1998; Travelers was subsequently spun off from the company in 2002. Citigroup owns Citicorp, the holding company for Citibank, as well as several international subsidiaries. Citigroup is incorporated in Delaware.
A NatWest mobile banking van in the town of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England. The van visits Berkeley for two hours each Thursday following the closure of the town's NatWest branch in 2015.