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...)
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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A bank card is typically a plastic card issued by a bank to its clients that performs one or more of a number of services that relate to giving the client access to a bank account.
Physically, a bank card will usually have the client's name, the issuer's name, and a unique card number printed on it. It will have a magnetic strip on the back enabling various machines to read and access information. Depending on the issuing bank and the preferences of the client, this may allow the card to be used as an ATM card, enabling transactions at automated teller machines; or as a debit card, linked to the client's bank account and able to be used for making purchases at the point of sale with a bank card using a payment terminal. (Full article...)
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Logo of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
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.
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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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 and/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...)
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An automated clearing house (ACH) is a computer-based electronic network for processing transactions, usually domestic low value payments, between participating financial institutions. It may support both credit transfers and direct debits. The ACH system is designed to process batches of payments containing numerous transactions, and it charges fees low enough to encourage its use for low value payments. (Full article...)
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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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A Christmas club is a special-purpose savings account, first offered by various banks and credit unions in the United States beginning in the early 20th century, including the Great Depression. Bank customers would deposit a set amount of money each week into a savings account, and receive the money back at the end of the year for Christmas shopping. (Full article...)
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An ATM card is a dedicated payment card 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, in some countries, to make approved point of purchase retail transactions. ATM cards are not credit cards or debit cards, however most credit and debit cards can also act as ATM cards and that is the most common way that banks issue cards since the 2010s.
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 point of sale transaction, usually attracting interest charges from the date of the cash withdrawal. (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...)
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Since 2010, Crédit Agricole has been headquartered in a remodeled former Schlumberger plant in Montrouge, known as Campus Evergreen
Crédit Agricole Group (French:[kʁediaɡʁikɔl]), sometimes called La banque verte (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.
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...)
HSBC traces its origin to a hong trading house in British Hong Kong. The bank was established in 1865 in Hong Kong and opened branches in Shanghai in the same year. It was first formally incorporated in 1866. In 1991, the present parent legal entity, HSBC Holdings plc, was established in London and the historic Hong-Kong-based bank from whose initials the group took its name became that entity's fully-owned subsidiary. The next year (1992), HSBC took over Midland Bank and thus became one of the largest domestic banks in the United Kingdom. (Full article...)
Barclays plc (/ˈbɑːrkliz/, occasionally /-leɪz/) is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services.
Barclays traces its origins to the goldsmith banking business established in the City of London in 1690. James Barclay became a partner in the business in 1736. In 1896, twelve banks in London and the English provinces, including Goslings Bank, Backhouse's Bank and Gurney, Peckover and Company, united as a joint-stock bank under the name Barclays and Co. Over the following decades, Barclays expanded to become a nationwide bank. In 1967, Barclays deployed the world's first cash dispenser. Barclays has made numerous corporate acquisitions, including of London, Provincial and South Western Bank in 1918, British Linen Bank in 1919, Mercantile Credit in 1975, the Woolwich in 2000 and the North American operations of Lehman Brothers in 2008. (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...)
It is a major financial institution that started in 1875 as a postal savings system, and that still today continues to operate primarily out of post office branches. It manages over ¥205 trillion of assets and offers services in almost 24,000 branches across Japan. At times in its history, it was the largest financial institution in the world. Since its conception, it has played a significant role in both making economic services to people in Japan and making investments towards the economic and industrial development of the country. (Full article...)
ICBC became the world's largest bank by total assets in 2012 (based on year-end balance sheet) and has kept this rank ever since. It was ranked first on the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world's top public companies in 2015. On 31 December 2022, It was the third-largest bank in the world by market capitalization at $211 billion. It is one of the most profitable companies in the world, ranking fourth according to Forbes in 2022 . It has been designated a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) since the start of the FSB's listing. (Full article...)
Image 30Statesman 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)