Portal:Banks

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...)

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 term plastic card includes the above and as an identity document. These are similar to a credit card, but unlike a credit card, the money for the purchase must be in the cardholder's bank account at the time of a 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 card), 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...)

The CAMELS rating is a supervisory rating system originally developed in the U.S. to classify a bank's overall condition. It is applied to every bank and credit union in the U.S. and is also implemented outside the U.S. by various banking supervisory regulators.

The ratings are assigned based on a ratio analysis of the financial statements, combined with on-site examinations made by a designated supervisory regulator. In the U.S. these supervisory regulators include the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the National Credit Union Administration, the Farm Credit Administration, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. (Full article...)

Logo of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ('OCC) is an independent bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury that was established by the National Currency Act of 1863 and serves to charter, regulate, and supervise all national banks and thrift institutions and the federally licensed branches and agencies of foreign banks in the United States.' The acting Comptroller of the Currency is Michael J. Hsu, who took office on May 10, 2021. (Full article...)

An industrial loan company (ILC) or industrial bank is a financial institution in the United States that lends money, and may be owned by non-financial institutions. They provide niche financial services nationwide. ILCs offer FDIC-insured deposits and are subject to FDIC and state regulator oversight. All "FDIC-insured entities are subject to Sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act, which limits bank transactions with affiliates, including the non-bank parent company." ILCs are permitted to have branches in multiple states (which is permitted by many states on a reciprocal basis). They are regulated and supervised by state charters and insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. They are authorized to make consumer and commercial loans and accept federally insured deposits. Banks may not accept demand deposits if the bank has total assets greater than $100 million. ILCs are exempted from the Bank Holding Company Act.

ILCs assist numerous charities and provide millions of dollars annually in grants, low interest loans, and service through the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Currently, only seven states offer an ILC bank charter. Most ILCs have been chartered by the Utah Department of Financial Institutions. Other states permitting ILCs include California, Colorado, Minnesota, Indiana, Hawaii, and Nevada. (Full article...)

The Rhode Island banking crisis took place in the early 1990s, when approximately a third of the US state of Rhode Island's population lost access to funds in their bank accounts. The events were triggered by the failure of a Providence bank, Heritage Loan & Investment, due to long-term embezzlement by its president. News of its problems led to a bank run in which customers tried to withdraw money from the bank which did not have enough money available. In normal circumstances, depositors would be protected by the bank's insurance, but the state's private insurer had a long history of problems and was unable to fulfill its commitments. When the insurer collapsed, Governor Bruce Sundlun announced the closure of 45 credit unions and banks just hours after his inauguration.

In the first banking emergency in the state since the Great Depression, 300,000 depositors lost access to their money. Though some of the institutions reopened relatively quickly after obtaining federal insurance, many did not qualify and remained closed for an extended period of time. The state government set up an agency to manage the crisis, selling $697 million in bonds to repay people while filing about 300 lawsuits against the closed institutions and other companies that played a role in the crisis. (Full article...)

A bank run or run on the bank occurs when many clients withdraw their money from a bank, because they believe the bank may fail in the near future. In other words, it is when, in a fractional-reserve banking system (where banks normally only keep a small proportion of their assets as cash), numerous customers withdraw cash from deposit accounts with a financial institution at the same time because they believe that the financial institution is, or might become, insolvent. When they transfer funds to another institution, it may be characterized as a capital flight. As a bank run progresses, it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy: as more people withdraw cash, the likelihood of default increases, triggering further withdrawals. This can destabilize the bank to the point where it runs out of cash and thus faces sudden bankruptcy. To combat a bank run, a bank may acquire more cash from other banks or from the central bank, or limit the amount of cash customers may withdraw, either by a imposing a hard limit or by scheduling quick deliveries of cash, encouraging high-return term deposits to reduce on-demand withdrawals or suspending withdrawals altogether.

A banking panic or bank panic is a financial crisis that occurs when many banks suffer runs at the same time, as people suddenly try to convert their threatened deposits into cash or try to get out of their domestic banking system altogether. A systemic banking crisis is one where all or almost all of the banking capital in a country is wiped out. The resulting chain of bankruptcies can cause a long economic recession as domestic businesses and consumers are starved of capital as the domestic banking system shuts down. According to former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, the Great Depression was caused by the failure of the Federal Reserve System to prevent deflation, and much of the economic damage was caused directly by bank runs. The cost of cleaning up a systemic banking crisis can be huge, with fiscal costs averaging 13% of GDP and economic output losses averaging 20% of GDP for important crises from 1970 to 2007. (Full article...)

The New York Stock Exchange Building's Broad Street entrance (right) as seen from Wall Street

Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry, New York–based financial interests, or the Financial District itself. Anchored by Wall Street, New York has been described as the world's principal financial and fintech center.

Wall Street was originally known in Dutch as "Het Cingel" (or "the Belt") when it was part of New Amsterdam in the 17th century. An actual wall existed on the street from 1653 to 1699. During the 18th century, Wall Street was a slave trading marketplace and a securities trading site, and from the early eighteenth century (1703) 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...)

A custodian bank, or simply custodian, is a specialized financial institution responsible for providing securities services. It safeguards assets of asset managers, insurance companies, hedge funds, and is not engaged in "traditional" commercial or consumer/retail banking like lending. The role of a custodian in such a case would be to:

• hold in safekeeping assets/securities such as stocks, bonds, commodities such as precious metals and currency (cash), domestic and foreign
• arrange settlement of any purchases and sales and deliveries in/out of such securities and currency
• collect information on and income from such assets (dividends in the case of stocks/equities and coupons (interest payments) in the case of bonds) and administer related tax withholding documents and foreign tax reclamation
• administer voluntary and involuntary corporate actions on securities held such as stock dividends, stock splits, business combinations (mergers), tender offers, bond calls, etc.
• provide information on the securities and their issuers such as annual general meetings and related proxies
• maintain currency/cash bank accounts, effect deposits and withdrawals and manage other cash transactions
• perform foreign exchange transactions
• often perform additional services for particular clients such as mutual funds; examples include fund accounting, administration, legal, compliance and tax support services

(Full article...)

World map showing real GDP growth rates for 2009; countries in brown were in a recession.

The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline observed in national economies globally, i.e. a recession, that occurred from late 2007 to 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At the time, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded that it was the most severe economic and financial meltdown since the Great Depression. One result was a serious disruption of normal international relations.

The causes of the Great Recession include a combination of vulnerabilities that developed in the financial system, along with a series of triggering events that began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble in 2005–2012. When housing prices fell and homeowners began to abandon their mortgages, the value of mortgage-backed securities held by investment banks declined in 2007–2008, causing several to collapse or be bailed out in September 2008. This 2007–2008 phase was called the subprime mortgage crisis. The combination of banks unable to provide funds to businesses, and homeowners paying down debt rather than borrowing and spending, resulted in the Great Recession that began in the U.S. officially in December 2007 and lasted until June 2009, thus extending over 19 months. As with most other recessions, it appears that no known formal theoretical or empirical model was able to accurately predict the advance of this recession, except for minor signals in the sudden rise of forecast probabilities, which were still well under 50%. (Full article...)

Shinhan Bank Co., Ltd. (Korean: 주식회사 신한은행; RR: Jusik Hoesa Sinan Eunaeng) is a bank headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Historically it was the first bank in Korea, established under the name Hanseong Bank in 1897. The bank was reestablished in 1982. It is part of the Shinhan Financial Group, along with Jeju Bank. Chohung Bank merged with Shinhan Bank on April 1, 2006.

Shinhan Bank started as a small enterprise with a capital stock of KRW 25.0 billion, 279 employees, and three branches on July 7, 1982. Today, it has transformed itself into a large bank, boasting total assets of KRW 176.9 trillion, equity capital of KRW 9.7 trillion, 10,741 employees, and 1,026 branches as of 2006. As of June 30, 2016, Shinhan Bank had total assets of ₩298.945 trillion (equivalent to ₩304.658 trillion or US$269.507 billion in 2017)[1] , total deposits of ₩221.047 trillion (equivalent to ₩225.271 trillion or US$199.28 billion in 2017)[1] and loans of ₩212.228 trillion (equivalent to ₩216.283 trillion or US$191.329 billion in 2017)[1]. Shinhan Bank is the main subsidiary of Shinhan Financial Group (SFG). (Full article...)

Washington Mutual (often abbreviated to WaMu) was the United States' largest savings and loan association until its collapse in 2008.

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 $16.7 billion 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 $1.9 billion, 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, WaMu, Inc., was left with $33 billion in assets, and $8 billion in debt, after being stripped of its banking subsidiary by the FDIC. The next day, WaMu, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 voluntary bankruptcy in Delaware, where it was incorporated. (Full article...)

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG; 株式会社三菱UFJフィナンシャル・グループ, Kabushiki gaisha Mitsubishi UFJ Finansharu Gurūpu) is a Japanese bank holding and financial services company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan.

MUFG holds assets of around US$3.1 trillion as of 2016 and is one of the "Three Great Houses" of the Mitsubishi Group alongside Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It is Japan's largest financial group and the world's second largest bank holding company holding around US$1.8 trillion (JP¥148 trillion) in deposits as of March 2011. The letters MUFG come from Mitsubishi and United Financial of Japan. (Full article...)

The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was a New York City-based global investment bank, securities trading, and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 as part of the global financial crisis and recession, and was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chase. The company's main business areas before its failure were capital markets, investment banking, wealth management, and global clearing services, and it was heavily involved in the subprime mortgage crisis.

In the years leading up to the failure, Bear Stearns was heavily involved in securitization and issued large amounts of asset-backed securities which were, in the case of mortgages, pioneered by Lewis Ranieri, "the father of mortgage securities". As investor losses mounted in those markets in 2006 and 2007, the company actually increased its exposure, especially to the mortgage-backed assets that were central to the subprime mortgage crisis. In March 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York provided an emergency loan to try to avert a sudden collapse of the company. The company could not be saved, however, and was sold to JPMorgan Chase for $10 per share, a price far below its pre-crisis 52-week high of $133.20 per share, but not as low as the $2 per share originally agreed upon. (Full article...)

Royal Bank Plaza in downtown Toronto

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC; French: Banque Royale du Canada) is a Canadian multinational financial services company and the largest bank in Canada by market capitalization. The bank serves over 17 million clients and has more than 89,000 employees worldwide. Founded in 1864 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, it maintains a corporate headquarters in Toronto and its head office in Montreal. RBC's institution number is 003. In November 2017, RBC was added to the Financial Stability Board's list of global systemically important banks.

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 10 million clients through its network of 1,209 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 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 Group AG (French pronunciation: ​[kʁe.di sɥis], lit. 'Swiss Credit') is a global investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, it maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world and provides services in investment banking, private banking, asset management, and shared services. It is known for strict bank–client confidentiality and banking secrecy. The Financial Stability Board considers it to be a global systemically important bank. Credit Suisse is also a primary dealer and Forex counterparty of the Federal Reserve in the United States.

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. The biggest institutional shareholders of Credit Suisse include the Saudi National Bank (9.88%), the Qatar Investment Authority and BlackRock (about 5% each), Dodge & Cox, Norges Bank and the Saudi Olayan Group. (Full article...)

Deutsche Bank AG (German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃə ˈbaŋk ʔaːˈɡeː] (listen)), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. It was founded in 1870 and grew through multiple acquisitions, including Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1929 (as a consequence of which it was known from 1929 to 1937 as Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft or "DeDi-Bank"), Bankers Trust in 1998, and Deutsche Postbank in 2010.

As of 2018, the bank's network spanned 58 countries with a large presence in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. As of 2021, Deutsche Bank was the 21st largest bank in the world by total assets and 93rd in the world by market capitalization. It is a component of the DAX stock market index, and often referred to as the largest German banking institution even though the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe comes well ahead in terms of combined assets. Deutsche Bank has been designated as a global systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board since 2011. (Full article...)

Toronto-Dominion Bank (French: Banque Toronto-Dominion), doing business as TD Bank Group (French: Groupe Banque TD), is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The bank and its subsidiaries are commonly known as simply TD and trading under the name Toronto-Dominion Bank. The bank was created on February 1, 1955, through the merger of the Bank of Toronto and The Dominion Bank, which were founded in 1855 and 1869; respectively. It is one of two Big Five banks of Canada founded in Toronto, the other being the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The TD Bank SWIFT code is TDOMCATTTOR and the TD institution number is 004.

In 2021, according to Standard & Poor's, TD Bank Group was the largest bank in Canada by total assets and also by market capitalization, a top-10 bank in North America, and the 23rd largest bank in the world. In 2019, it was designated a global systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board. (Full article...)

25 Gresham Street

Lloyds Banking Group is a British financial institution formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. It is one of the UK's largest financial services organisations, with 30 million customers and 65,000 employees. Lloyds Bank was founded in 1765 but the wider Group's heritage extends over 320 years, dating back to the founding of the Bank of Scotland by the Parliament of Scotland in 1695.

The Group's headquarters are located at 25 Gresham Street in the City of London, while its registered office is on The Mound in Edinburgh. It also operates office sites in Birmingham, Bristol, West Yorkshire and Glasgow. The Group also has extensive overseas operations in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Its headquarters for business in the European Union is in Berlin, Germany. (Full article...)

ABN AMRO Head Office in Zuidas, Amsterdam

ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is the third-largest Dutch bank, with headquarters in Amsterdam. It was initially formed in 1991 by merger of the two prior Dutch banks that form its name, Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN) and Amsterdamsche en Rotterdamsche Bank (AMRO Bank).

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. 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...)