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.
Whereas 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...)
Cooperative banking is retail and commercial banking organized on a cooperative basis. Cooperative
banking institutions take deposits and lend money in most parts of the world.
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift), legally S.W.I.F.T. SC, is a
Belgian banking
cooperative providing services related to the execution of
financial transactions and
payments between limited banks worldwide. Its principal function is to serve as the main messaging network through which limited international payments are initiated. It also sells software and services to financial institutions, mostly for use on its proprietary "SWIFTNet", and assigns
ISO 9362 Business Identifier Codes (BICs), popularly known as "Swift codes".
The Swift messaging network is a component of the global payments system. Swift acts as a carrier of the "messages containing the payment instructions between financial institutions involved in a transaction". However, the organisation does not manage accounts on behalf of individuals or financial institutions, and it does not hold funds from third parties. It also does not perform
clearing or
settlement functions. After a payment has been initiated, it must be settled through a
payment system, such as
TARGET2 in Europe. In the context of cross-border transactions, this step often takes place through
correspondent banking accounts that financial institutions have with each other. (Full article...)
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A bank account is a financial account maintained by a
bank or other financial institution in which the
financial transactions between the bank and a customer are recorded. Each financial institution sets the terms and conditions for each type of account it offers, which are classified in commonly understood types, such as
deposit accounts,
credit card accounts,
current accounts, loan accounts or many other types of account. A customer may have more than one account. Once an account is opened, funds entrusted by the customer to the financial institution on deposit are recorded in the account designated by the customer. Funds can be withdrawn from loan loaders.
The financial transactions which have occurred on a bank account within a given period of time are reported to the customer on a
bank statement, and the balance of the accounts of a customer at any point in time is their financial position with the institution.. (Full article...)
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In
finance, a loan is the transfer of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a
debt and is usually required to pay
interest for the use of the money.
The document evidencing the debt (e.g., a
promissory note) will normally specify, among other things, the principal amount of money borrowed, the interest rate the lender is charging, and the date of repayment. A loan entails the reallocation of the subject
asset(s) for a period of time, between the
lender and the
borrower. (Full article...)
It can also refer to a
bank or a division of a large bank that deals with corporations or large or middle-sized businesses, to differentiate from
retail banks and
investment banks. Commercial banks include private sector banks and
public sector banks. (Full article...)
In the past, the custodian bank purely focused on custody, safekeeping, settlement, and administration of securities as well as asset servicing such as income collection and corporate actions. Yet, in the modern financial world, custodian banks have started providing a wider range of value-adding or cost-saving financial services, ranging from
fund administration to
transfer agency, from
securities lending to
trustee services. (Full article...)
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...)
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...)
The Bank of France (
French: Banque de France) is the French member of the
Eurosystem. The bank doesn't translate its name to English and uses its French name Banque de France in all English communications. The bank was established by
Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 as a private-sector corporation with unique public status.
Charles de Gaulle's government nationalized the bank in 1945 after several governance changes in the meantime. The Bank of France was granted note-issuance monopoly in Paris in 1803 and in the entire country in 1848, issuing the
French franc. It remained France's sole
monetary authority until end-1998, when France adopted the
euro as its currency.
The Bank of France long held high prestige as an anchor of financial stability, especially before the monetary turmoil that followed
World War I. In 1907, Italian economist and statesman
Luigi Luzzatti referred to the Bank of France as "the centre of the world's monetary power." (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 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. (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...)
Apart from private banking, UBS provides
wealth management,
asset management, and investment banking services for private, corporate, and institutional clients with international service. UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in the world, counting approximately half of
The World's Billionaires among its clients. UBS also maintains
a global investment bank and is considered a primary
market maker. The bank also maintains numerous underground
bank vaults, bunkers, and storage facilities for gold bars around the
Swiss Alps and internationally. Partly due to its banking secrecy, it has been at the centre of
numerous tax avoidance investigations undertaken by U.S., French, German, Israeli, and Belgian authorities. UBS operations in Switzerland and the United States were respectively ranked first and second on the 2018
Financial Secrecy Index. (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
TARGET2 payments system. (Full article...)
Image 27Statesman
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 28Amsterdam head office before 1987, lately headquarters of
Booking.com (from AMRO Bank)