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...)
Worldwide, credit union systems vary significantly in their 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 375 million, with over 100 million members having been added since 2016. (Full article...)
Islamic banking, Islamic finance (Arabic: مصرفية إسلاميةmasrifiyya 'islamia), or Sharia-compliant finance is banking or financing activity that complies with Sharia (Islamic law) and its practical application through the development of Islamic economics. Some of the modes of Islamic finance include mudarabah (profit-sharing and loss-bearing), wadiah (safekeeping), musharaka (joint venture), murabahah (cost-plus), and ijarah (leasing).
Sharia prohibits riba, or usury, generally defined as interest paid on all loans of money (although some Muslims dispute whether there is a consensus that interest is equivalent to riba). Investment in businesses that provide goods or services considered contrary to Islamic principles (e.g. pork or alcohol) is also haram ("sinful and prohibited"). (Full article...)
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An offshore bank is a bank that is operated and 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. OFCs often also levy little or no corporation tax and/or personal income and high direct taxes such as duty, making the cost of living high.
Different wire transfer systems and operators provide a variety of options relative to the immediacy and finality of settlement and the cost, value, and volume of transactions. Central bank wire transfer systems, such as the Federal Reserve's Fedwire system in the United States, are more likely to be real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems, as they provide the quickest availability of funds. (Full article...)
"Banq" and "banc" are alternative spellings used in company names to evade legal restrictions on the use of the word 'bank' while maintaining a similar pronunciation. This practice is common in the financial services industry, particularly in the United States. (Full article...)
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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...)
A Kookmin Bank debit card A debit card, also known as a check card or bank card, is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The card usually consists of the bank's name, a card number, the cardholder's name, and an expiration date, on either the front or the back. Many new cards now have a chip on them, which allows people to use their card by touch (contactless), or by inserting the card and keying in a PIN as with swiping the magnetic stripe. Debit cards are similar to a credit card, but the money for the purchase must be in the cardholder's bank account at the time of the purchase and is immediately transferred directly from that account to the merchant's account to pay for the purchase.
Some debit cards carry a stored value with which a payment is made (prepaid cards), but most relay a message to the cardholder's bank to withdraw funds from the cardholder's designated bank account. In some cases, the payment card number is assigned exclusively for use on the Internet, and there is no physical card. This is referred to as a virtual card. (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...)
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Wall Street during the bank panic in October 1907. Federal Hall National Memorial, with its statue of George Washington, is seen on the right. The Panic of 1907, also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis, was a financial crisis that took place in the United States over a three-week period starting in mid-October, when the New York Stock Exchange suddenly fell almost 50% from its peak the previous year. The panic occurred during a time of economic recession, and there were numerous runs affecting banks and trust companies. The 1907 panic eventually spread throughout the nation when many state and local banks and businesses entered bankruptcy. The primary causes of the run included a retraction of market liquidity by a number of New York City banks and a loss of confidence among depositors, exacerbated by unregulated side bets at bucket shops.
The panic was triggered by the failed attempt in October 1907 to corner the market on stock of the United Copper Company. When the bid failed, banks that had lent money to the cornering scheme suffered runs that later spread to affiliated banks and trusts, leading a week later to the downfall of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, New York City's third-largest trust. The collapse of the Knickerbocker spread fear throughout the city's trusts as regional banks withdrew reserves from New York City banks. The panic then extended across the nation as vast numbers of people withdrew deposits from their regional banks, causing the 8th-largest decline in U.S. stock market history. (Full article...)
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...)
On September 25, 2008, the United States Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) seized WaMu's banking operations and placed it into receivership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The OTS took the action due to the withdrawal of US$16.7billion in deposits during a 9-day bank run (amounting to 9% of the deposits it had held on June 30, 2008). The FDIC sold the banking subsidiaries (minus unsecured debt and equity claims) to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9billion, which had been considering acquiring WaMu as part of a plan internally nicknamed "Project West". All WaMu branches were rebranded as Chase branches by the end of 2009. The holding company was left with $33billion in assets, and $8billion in debt, after being stripped of its banking subsidiary by the FDIC. The next day, it filed for Chapter 11 voluntary bankruptcy in Delaware, where it was incorporated. (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...)
The Bank of France was originally established by Napoleon Bonaparte as a private-sector corporation with unique public status. It was granted note-issuance monopoly in Paris in 1803 and in the entire country in 1848. Long independent from direct political interference, it was brought under government control in 1936 and eventually nationalized in 1945. While other banks of issue were established in the French colonial empire, the Bank of France remained Metropolitan France's sole monetary authority until France's adoption of the euro as its currency. (Full article...)
JPMorgan Chase was created in 2000 by the merger of New York City banks J.P. Morgan & Co. and Chase Manhattan Company. Through its predecessors, the firm's early history can be traced to 1799, with the founding of what became the Bank of the Manhattan Company. J.P. Morgan & Co. was founded in 1871 by the American financier J. P. Morgan, who launched the House of Morgan on 23 Wall Street as a national purveyor of commercial, investment, and private banking services. Today, the firm is a major provider of investment banking services, through corporate advisory, mergers and acquisitions, sales and trading, and public offerings. Their private banking franchise and asset management division are among the world's largest in terms of total assets. Its retail banking and credit card offerings are provided via the Chase brand in the U.S. and United Kingdom. (Full article...)
Image 25Statesman 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 26Branch of Nepal Bank in Pokhara, Western Nepal. (from Bank)
Image 27Bank of Finland strong box which moved to Helsinki with the bank when it relocated from Turku (from Bank of Finland)
Image 46From 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)
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)
![Image 8Interior of the Helsinki Branch of the Vyborg-Bank [fi] in the 1910s (from Bank)](/wiki/File:Pohjoismaiden_Osakepankin_Helsingin_sivukonttori.jpg?lang=en)
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![Image 23Rotterdam head office [nl], later repurposed as a shopping center (from AMRO Bank)](/wiki/File:Forum_Rotterdam_-_Rotterdamsche_Bank_2022_01.jpg?lang=en)
![Image 24Former branch [fi] in Tampere (from Bank of Finland)](/wiki/File:Suomen_Pankin_talo_Tampere.jpg?lang=en)
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![Image 33Helsinki 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?lang=en)
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![Image 45Sederholm House [fi] in Helsinki, the Bank's seat from 1819 to 1824 (from Bank of Finland)](/wiki/File:Sederholmin_talo.jpg?lang=en)
