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.
It can also refer to a bank or a division of a larger bank that deals with wholesale banking to 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. However, central banks function differently from commercial banks, despite a common misconception known as the "bank analogy". Unlike commercial banks, central banks are not primarily focused on generating profits and cannot become insolvent in the same way as commercial banks in a fiat currency system. (Full article...)
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 requires some institutional separation of investment banking services from commercial banking. (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 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 but impose high direct taxes such as duty, making the cost of living high.
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), legally S.W.I.F.T. SC, is a cooperative established in 1973 in Belgium (French: Société Coopérative) and owned by the banks and other member firms that use its service. SWIFT provides the main messaging network through which 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".
As of 2018, around half of all high-value cross-border payments worldwide used the SWIFT network, and in 2015, SWIFT linked more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries and territories, who were exchanging an average of over 32 million messages per day (compared to an average of 2.4 million daily messages in 1995). (Full article...)
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UML class diagram depicting a bank account 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. Later, in 2010s, smart card technology was adopted for bank card. (Full article...)
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Loan document issued by the Bank of Petrevene, Bulgaria, dated 1936 In finance, a loan is the tender 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...)
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. In other words, the banker-customer (depositor) relationship is one of debtor-creditor. Some banks charge fees for transactions on a customer's account. Additionally, some banks pay customers interest on their account balances. (Full article...)
The funds transfer process generally consists of a series of electronic messages sent between financial institutions directing each to make the debit and credit accounting entries necessary to complete the transaction. An electronic funds transfer starts when the sending customer send an electronic instruction with the purpose of making payment to the beneficiary or the receiving customer. (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. In 2015, ICBC ranked 1st on World Brand Lab's Top 500 Most Valuable Chinese Brands with a brand value of 261,576 million yuan.The same year, it was ranked first on the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world's top public companies. 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...)
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...)
In the 1950s, the 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...)
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. As of 2025, its balance sheet total was $1.818 trillion, making it the 5th largest central bank in the world. (Full article...)
Image 8Statesman 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 38From 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 39This 15th-century painting depicts money-dealers at a banca (bench) during the Cleansing of the Temple. (from Bank)
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![Image 4Interior of the Helsinki Branch of the Vyborg-Bank [fi] in the 1910s (from Bank)](/wiki/File:Pohjoismaiden_Osakepankin_Helsingin_sivukonttori.jpg)
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![Image 25Helsinki 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)
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![Image 41Rotterdam head office [nl], later repurposed as a shopping center (from AMRO Bank)](/wiki/File:Forum_Rotterdam_-_Rotterdamsche_Bank_2022_01.jpg)
![Image 45Former branch [fi] in Tampere (from Bank of Finland)](/wiki/File:Suomen_Pankin_talo_Tampere.jpg)
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