Portal:Banks
Introduction
The Bank of England, established in 1694.
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates credit. Lending activities can be performed either directly or indirectly through capital markets. Due to their importance in the financial stability of a country, banks are highly regulated in most countries. Most nations 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, known as the Basel Accords.
Banking in its modern sense evolved in the 14th century in the prosperous cities of Renaissance Italy but in many ways was a continuation of ideas and concepts of credit and lending that had their roots in the ancient world. In the history of banking, a number of banking dynasties – notably, the Medicis, the Fuggers, the Welsers, the Berenbergs, and the Rothschilds – have played a central role over many centuries. The oldest existing retail bank is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, while the oldest existing merchant bank is Berenberg Bank.
Selected banking articles
Islamic banking or Islamic finance (Arabic: مصرفية إسلامية) 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 banking/finance include Mudarabah (profit-sharing and loss-bearing), Wadiah (safekeeping), Musharaka (joint venture), Murabahah (cost-plus), and Ijara (leasing).
Sharia prohibits riba, or usury, 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 haraam ("sinful and prohibited"). Read more...
Fractional-reserve banking is the most common form of banking practised by commercial banks worldwide. It involves banks accepting deposits from customers and making loans to borrowers, while holding in reserve a fraction of the bank's deposit liabilities. Bank reserves are held as cash in the bank or as balances in the bank's account at the central bank. The minimum amount that banks are required to hold in liquid assets is determined by the country's central bank, and is called the reserve requirement or reserve ratio, but each bank can hold more than this minimum amount that takes into account their particular situation and liability profile.
Bank deposits are often of a relatively short-term duration while loans made banks tend to be longer-term, and banks working on the expectation and experience that only a proportion of depositors will seek to withdraw funds at the one time, keep only a fraction of their liabilities as reserves. However, banks can still experience an unexpected bank run, when more depositors wish to withdraw more funds than the reserves held by the bank. In that event, the bank experiencing the shortfall may borrow from other banks in the interbank lending market; or if there is a general lack of liquidity among the banks, the country's central bank may act as lender of last resort to provide banks with funds to cover this short-term shortfall. Read more...- Electronic bill payment is a feature of online, mobile and telephone banking, similar in its effect to a giro, allowing a customer of a financial institution to transfer money from their transaction or credit card account to a creditor or vendor such as a public utility, department store or an individual to be credited against a specific account. These payments are typically executed electronically as a direct deposit through a national payment system, operated by the banks or in conjunction with the government. Payment is typically initiated by the payer but can also be set up as a direct debit.
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. Read more... - An Investment bank is a financial services company or corporate division that engages in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with corporate finance, such a bank might assist in raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of securities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provide ancillary services such as market making, trading of derivatives and equity securities, and FICC services (fixed income instruments, currencies, and commodities). Most investment banks maintain prime brokerage and asset management departments in conjunction with their investment research businesses. As an industry, it is broken up into the Bulge Bracket (upper tier), Middle Market (mid-level businesses), and boutique market (specialized businesses).
Unlike commercial banks and retail banks, investment banks do not take deposits. 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. Read more... 
An NCR Personas 75-Series interior, multi-function ATM in the United States
An automated teller machine (ATM) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, transfer funds, or obtaining account information, at any time and without the need for direct interaction with bank staff.
ATMs are known by a variety of names, including automatic teller machine (ATM) in the United States (sometimes redundantly as "ATM machine"). In Canada, the term automated banking machine (ABM) is used,, although ATM is also very commonly used in Canada, and many Canadian organizations use ATM over ABM. In British English, the terms cashpoint, cash machine and hole in the wall are most widely used. Other terms include any time money, cashline, nibank, tyme machine, cash dispenser, cash corner, bankomat, or bancomat. Many ATMs have a sign above them indicating the name of the bank or organisation that owns the ATM, and possibly including the networks to which it can connect. ATMs that are not operated by a financial institution are known as "white-label" ATMs. Read more...- 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 bank account,if is out of business hours.
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 automatic teller machines; as debit card, linked to the client's bank account and able to be used for making purchases at the point of sale. Read more...
A cheque, or check (American English; see spelling differences), is a document that orders a bank to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The person writing the cheque, known as the drawer, has a transaction banking account (often called a current, cheque, chequing or checking account) where their money is held. The drawer writes the various details including the monetary amount, date, and a payee on the cheque, and signs it, ordering their bank, known as the drawee, to pay that person or company the amount of money stated.
Cheques are a type of bill of exchange and were developed as a way to make payments without the need to carry large amounts of money. Paper money evolved from promissory notes, another form of negotiable instrument similar to cheques in that they were originally a written order to pay the given amount to whoever had it in their possession (the "bearer"). Read more...- Bank regulation is a form of government regulation which subjects banks to certain requirements, restrictions and guidelines, designed to create market transparency between banking institutions and the individuals and corporations with whom they conduct business, among other things. As regulation focusing on key actors in the financial markets, it forms one of the three components of financial law, the other two being case law and self-regulating market practices.
Given the interconnectedness of the banking industry and the reliance that the national (and global) economy hold on banks, it is important for regulatory agencies to maintain control over the standardized practices of these institutions. Another relevant example for the interconnectedness is that the law of financial industries or financial law focuses on the financial (banking), capital, and insurance markets. Supporters of such regulation often base their arguments on the "too big to fail" notion. This holds that many financial institutions (particularly investment banks with a commercial arm) hold too much control over the economy to fail without enormous consequences. This is the premise for government bailouts, in which government financial assistance is provided to banks or other financial institutions who appear to be on the brink of collapse. The belief is that without this aid, the crippled banks would not only become bankrupt, but would create rippling effects throughout the economy leading to systemic failure. Compliance with bank regulations is verified by personnel known as bank examiners. Read more...
A credit union is a member-owned financial cooperative, controlled by its members and operated on the principle of people helping people, providing its members credit at competitive rates as well as other financial services.
Worldwide, credit union systems vary significantly in terms of total assets and average institution asset size, ranging from volunteer operations with a handful of members to institutions with assets worth several billion U.S. dollars and hundreds of thousands of members. Credit unions operate alongside other mutuals and cooperatives engaging in cooperative banking, such as building societies. Read more...- Asset quality is an evaluation of asset to measure the credit risk associated with it. Read more...
- A time deposit or term deposit (also known as a certificate of deposit in the United States) is an interest-bearing bank deposit with a specified period of maturity. It is a money deposit at a banking institution that cannot be withdrawn for a specific term or period of time (unless a penalty is paid). When the term is over, it can be either withdrawn or held for another term. Generally speaking, the longer the term, the better the yield on the money.
The opposite, sometimes known as a call deposit or sight deposit, is a deposit that can be withdrawn at any time, without any notice or penalty: e.g., money deposited into a checking account at a bank. Read more... - A giro (/ˈdʒaɪroʊ,
ˈʒɪəroʊ/), or giro transfer, is a payment transfer from one bank account to another bank account and initiated by the payer, not the payee. The debit card has a similar model. Giros are primarily a European phenomenon; although electronic payment systems such as the Automated Clearing House exist in the United States and Canada, it is not possible to perform third party transfers with them. In the European Union, there is the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) which allows electronic giro or debit card payments in euros to be executed to any euro bank account in the area.
In the United Kingdom and in other countries the term giro may refer to a specific system once operated by the post office. In the UK, the giro service was originally known as National Giro. In due course "giro" was adopted by the public and the press as a shorthand term for the girocheque, which was a cheque and not a credit transfer. Meanwhile, there were Bank Giro Credits, which were instructions to credit a particular bank account: these were not instructions to debit another account, so they had to be accompanied with cash or cheques, and they could be used both for bill payments and as paying-in slips; when used for paying bills they were often free-of-charge to the payer when used at the payer's or payee's bank but with an administration charge at other banks. Read more... - A custodian bank, or simply custodian, is a specialized financial institution responsible for safeguarding a firm's or individual's financial assets and is not engaged in "traditional" commercial or consumer/retail banking such as mortgage or personal lending, branch banking, personal accounts, Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and so forth. 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
Using US definitions, a person who owns street name securities and who is not a member of an exchange, holds the securities through a registration chain which involves one or more custodians. This is due to the perceived impracticality of registering traded securities in the name of each individual holder; instead, the custodian or custodians are registered as the holders and hold the securities in a fiduciary arrangement for the ultimate security holders. However, the ultimate security holders are still the legal owners of the securities. They are not merely beneficiaries of the custodian as a trustee. The custodian does not become at any point the owner of the securities, but is only a part of the registration chain linking the owners to the securities.
Global securities safekeeping practices vary substantially with markets such as the UK, Australia and South Africa encouraging designated securities accounts in order to permit shareholder identification by companies. Read more... - Money creation is the process by which the money supply of a country, or of an economic or monetary region, is increased. In most modern economies, most of the money supply is in the form of bank deposits. Central banks monitor the amount of money in the economy by measuring the so-called monetary aggregates. Read more...
Wall Street during the bank panic in October 1907.
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 fell almost 50% from its peak the previous year. Panic occurred, as this was during a time of economic recession, and there were numerous runs on banks and trust companies. The 1907 panic eventually spread throughout the nation when many state and local banks and businesses entered bankruptcy. 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 this 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. Panic extended across the nation as vast numbers of people withdrew deposits from their regional banks.
The panic might have deepened if not for the intervention of financier J. P. Morgan, who pledged large sums of his own money, and convinced other New York bankers to do the same, to shore up the banking system. This highlighted the impotence of the nation's Independent Treasury system, which managed the nation's money supply yet was unable to inject liquidity back into the market. By November, the financial contagion had largely ended, only to be replaced by a further crisis. This was due to the heavy borrowing of a large brokerage firm that used the stock of Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TC&I) as collateral. Collapse of TC&I's stock price was averted by an emergency takeover by Morgan's U.S. Steel Corporation—a move approved by anti-monopolist president Theodore Roosevelt. The following year, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., established and chaired a commission to investigate the crisis and propose future solutions, leading to the creation of the Federal Reserve System. Read more...- 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. Read more... - Postal savings systems provide depositors who do not have access to banks a safe and convenient method to save money. Many nations have operated banking systems involving post offices to promote saving money among the poor. Read more...
Selected banks
- The Laurentian Bank of Canada (LBC) (French: Banque Laurentienne du Canada) is a Schedule 1 bank that operates primarily in the province of Quebec, with commercial and business banking offices located in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Nova Scotia. LBC's Institution Number (or bank number) is 039. Read more...
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in New York City. It offers services in investment management, securities, asset management, prime brokerage, and securities underwriting.
The bank is one of the largest investment banking enterprises in the world, and is a primary dealer in the United States Treasury security market and more generally, a prominent market maker. The group also owns Goldman Sachs Bank USA, a direct bank. Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869 and is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan with additional offices in other international financial centers. Read more...
Shinhan Bank (신한은행 Shinhan Eunhaeng, SWIFT SHBKKRSE, numeric 088), 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 KRW 298.945 trillion (US$260 billion), total deposits of KRW 221.047 trillion (US$192 billion) and loans of KRW 212.228 trillion (US$184 billion). Shinhan Bank is the main subsidiary of Shinhan Financial Group[SFG] Read more...
Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈkajʃɐ ʒɨˈɾaɫ dɨ dɨˈpɔzituʃ]) is a Portuguese state-owned banking corporation, and the second largest bank in Portugal. CGD is Portugal's largest public sector banking corporation, established in Lisbon in 1876.
CGD now has presence in 23 countries spanning four continents through branches, representative offices or direct equity interests in local financial institutions. CGD is the largest Portuguese financial group, with the highest domestic market shares in key areas such as customer deposits, loans and advances to customers, mortgages, insurance, mutual funds and real estate leasing (11.4%). Based on assets, it ranks 109 in terms of the world’s major banks. CGD is the 69th largest European bank. Read more...
The State Bank of India (SBI) is an Indian multinational, public sector banking and financial services statutory body. It is a government corporation statutory body headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. SBI is ranked as 216th in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's biggest corporations of 2018. It is the largest bank in India with a 23% market share in assets, besides a share of one-fourth of the total loan and deposits market.
The bank descends from the Bank of Calcutta, founded in 1806, via the Imperial Bank of India, making it the oldest commercial bank in the Indian subcontinent. The Bank of Madras merged into the other two "presidency banks" in British India, the Bank of Calcutta and the Bank of Bombay, to form the Imperial Bank of India, which in turn became the State Bank of India in 1955. The Government of India took control of the Imperial Bank of India in 1955, with Reserve Bank of India (India's central bank) taking a 60% stake, renaming it the State Bank of India. Read more...
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (also known as RBS Group) is a private, but partly state-owned, British banking and insurance holding company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The group operates a wide variety of banking brands offering personal and business banking, private banking, insurance and corporate finance through its offices located in Europe, North America and Asia. In the UK, its main subsidiary companies are The Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Ulster Bank, NatWest Markets, and Coutts. The group issues banknotes in Scotland and Northern Ireland and, as of 2014, The Royal Bank of Scotland is the only bank in the UK to still print £1 notes.
Outside the UK, from 1988 to 2015 it owned Citizens Financial Group, the 13th largest bank in the United States, and from 2005 to 2009 it was the second largest shareholder in the Bank of China, itself the world's fifth largest bank by market capitalisation in February 2008. Read more...- Washington Mutual, Inc—abbreviated to WaMu—was a savings bank holding company and the former owner of WaMu Bank; America's largest savings and loan association until its collapse in 2008.
On Thursday, September 25, 2008, the United States Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) seized WaMu Bank from WaMu, Inc. 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 JPMorgan Chase had been planning to acquire as part of a confidential 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 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. Read more...
BNP Paribas S.A. is a French international banking group. It is the world's 8th largest bank by total assets, and currently operates with a presence in 77 countries. It was formed through the merger of Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) and Paribas in 2000, but has a corporate identity stretching back to its first foundation in 1848 as a national bank. It is one of three major international French banks, along with Société Générale and Crédit Agricole. The group is listed on the first market of Euronext Paris and a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index, while it also included in the French CAC 40 index.
With both a retail banking section and investment banking operations, the bank is present on five continents. Its retail banking networks serve more than 30 million customers in its three domestic markets, France, Belgium and Italy through several brands such as BNL and Fortis. The retail bank also operates in the Mediterranean region and in Africa. In the Americas, it operates in the western United States as Bank of the West and is Hawaii's most important banking group through its majority-owned subsidiary First Hawaiian Bank. As an investment bank and international financial services provider for corporate and institutional clients, it is present across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Read more...
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City. JPMorgan Chase is ranked by S&P Global as the largest bank in the United States and the sixth largest bank in the world by total assets, with total assets of US$2.73 trillion. It is also the world's most valuable bank by market capitalization. JPMorgan Chase is incorporated in New York.
As a "Bulge Bracket" bank, it is a major provider of various investment banking and financial services. It is one of America's Big Four banks, along with Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. JPMorgan Chase is considered to be a universal bank and a custodian bank. The J.P. Morgan brand, historically known as Morgan, is used by the investment banking, asset management, private banking, private wealth management, and treasury services divisions. Fiduciary activity within private banking and private wealth management is done under the aegis of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.—the actual trustee. The Chase brand is used for credit card services in the United States and Canada, the bank's retail banking activities in the United States, and commercial banking. Both the retail and commercial bank and the bank's corporate headquarters are currently located at 383 Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, while the prior headquarters building directly across the street, 270 Park Avenue, is demolished and replaced with a new building. The company was formed in 2000, when Chase Manhattan Corporation merged with J.P. Morgan & Co. Read more...
Deutsche Bank AG (German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏ̯t͡ʃə ˈbaŋk aːˈgeː] (
listen)) is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany.
The bank is operational in 58 countries with a large presence in Europe, the Americas and Asia. As of April 2018, Deutsche Bank is the 17th largest bank in the world by total assets. As the largest German banking institution, it is a component of the DAX stock market index. Read more...
Lloyds Banking Group plc is a major British financial institution formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. The Group's history stems from the founding in 1695 by the Parliament of Scotland of the Bank of Scotland, which is the second oldest bank in the United Kingdom. The Group's headquarters is located at 25 Gresham Street in the City of London and its registered office is on The Mound in Edinburgh. Lloyds Banking Group's activities are organised into: Retail Banking (including Mortgages and Sole Traders); Commercial; Life, Pensions & Insurance; and Wealth & International. Lloyds' 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.
Following the takeover, the Group stopped using the name HBOS publicly. The Halifax brand, products and pricing were discontinued in Scotland until it was re-established in 2013. The Halifax and Lloyds Bank brands are used in England and Wales and the Bank of Scotland and Halifax brand is used in Scotland, each offering different products and pricing. Lloyds Banking Group's CEO António Horta-Osório told The Banker, "We will keep the different brands because the customers are very different in terms of attitude". Read more...
ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is a Dutch bank with headquarters in Amsterdam. ABN AMRO Bank is the third-largest bank in the Netherlands. It was re-established in its current form in 2009, following the acquisition and break-up of the original ABN AMRO by a banking consortium consisting of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Santander Group and Fortis. Following the collapse of Fortis, who acquired the Dutch business, it was nationalized by the Dutch government along with Fortis Bank Nederland. It was relisted as a public company again in 2015.
The bank is a product of a long history of mergers and acquisitions that date to 1765. In 1991, Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN) and AMRO Bank (itself the result of a merger of the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank in the 1960s) agreed to merge to create the original ABN AMRO. By 2007, ABN AMRO was the second-largest bank in the Netherlands and the eighth-largest in Europe by assets. At that time the magazine The Banker and Fortune Global 500 placed it 15th in the list of world's biggest banks and it had operations in 63 countries, with over 110,000 employees. Read more...
Postal Savings Bank of China Co., Ltd. also known as PSBC is a commercial retail bank founded in 2007 and headquartered in Beijing. It provides basic financial services, especially to small and medium enterprises, rural and low income customers. As of December 31 2017, PSBC has 39,798 branches covering all regions of China.
PSBC was set up with an initial capital of RMB20 billion in 2007 from the State Post Bureau. Today it has RMB1.5 billion in deposits and the second largest number of branches, after the Agricultural Bank of China. Read more...- Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (株式会社みずほフィナンシャルグループ Kabushiki-gaisha Mizuho Finansharu Gurūpu), abbreviated as MHFG, or simply called Mizuho, is a banking holding company headquartered in the Ōtemachi district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The name "mizuho (瑞穂)" literally means "abundant rice" in Japanese and "harvest" in the figurative sense. Upon its founding, it was the largest bank in the world by assets.
It holds assets in excess of $1.8 trillion US dollars through its control of Mizuho Bank and other operating subsidiaries. The company's combined holdings form the second largest financial services group in Japan. Its banking businesses rank second in Japan after Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and the 14th in the world by total assets as of December 2017. It is the 90th largest company in the world according to Forbes rankings as of May 2017. Its shares have a primary listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Read more... - Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG; 株式会社三井住友フィナンシャルグループ Kabushiki kaisha Mitsui Sumitomo Finansharu Gurūpu) is a Japanese bank holding / financial services company established by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, the second largest bank in Japan by market value (as of November 2009).
The company holds assets of around US$1.8 trillion and is one of the largest financial institutions in the world. Read more...
The ING Group (Dutch: ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale banking, private banking, asset management, and insurance services. With total assets of US$1.1 trillion, it is one of the biggest banks in the world. It constantly ranks among the top 30 largest banks globally. It is also among the top 10 in the list of largest European companies by revenue.
ING is the Dutch member of the Inter-Alpha Group of Banks, a cooperative consortium of 11 prominent most important European banks. Since the creation in 2012, ING Bank is a member in the list of global systemically important banks. Read more...
Credit Suisse Group AG is a Swiss multinational investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, it maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world and is one of the eight global "Bulge Bracket" banks providing services in investment banking, private banking, asset management, and shared services. Credit Suisse is known for its strict bank–client confidentiality and banking secrecy practices.
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. After a large failed loan put First Boston under financial stress, Credit Suisse bought a controlling share of the bank in 1988. From 1990 to 2000, the company made a series of acquisitions dramatically increasing their market share via the purchases of Winterthur Group, Swiss Volksbank, Swiss American Securities Inc. (SASI) and Bank Leu, among others. Read more...- Standard Chartered PLC is a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, England. It operates a network of more than 1,200 branches and outlets (including subsidiaries, associates and joint ventures) across more than 70 countries and employs around 87,000 people. It is a universal bank with operations in consumer, corporate and institutional banking, and treasury services. Despite its UK base, it does not conduct retail banking in the UK, and around 90% of its profits come from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Standard Chartered has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It had a market capitalisation of approximately £24.4 billion as of 4 April 2017, the 28th-largest of any company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange. It has secondary listings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India. Its largest shareholder is the Government of Singapore-owned Temasek Holdings. Read more... - Bank of China (Chinese: 中国银行; pinyin: Zhōngguó Yínháng; often abbreviated as 中行 or BOC) is one of the four biggest state-owned commercial banks in China. Bank of China is legally separate from its subsidiary Bank of China (Hong Kong), although they maintain close relations in management and administration and co-operate in several areas including reselling BOC's insurance and securities services.
It was founded in 1912 by the Republican government to replace the Daqing Bank. It is the oldest bank in mainland China still in existence. From its establishment until 1942, it issued banknotes on behalf of the Government along with the "Big Four" banks of the period: the Farmers Bank of China, Bank of Communications and Central Bank of the Republic of China. Its headquarters are in Xicheng District, Beijing. Read more...
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Did you know...
- ... that Ernest Addison, the fifteenth Governor of the Bank of Ghana, is a Mfantsipim alumnus?
- ... that siderography, a process to produce counterfeit-resistant banknotes, was submitted for an 1817 Bank of England contest in an era when English banknotes were known as "filthy rags"?
- ... that after surviving a shooting incident, Boakye Agyarko immigrated to the US as a political refugee and rose to become a vice president of the Bank of New York?
- ... that during the Rhode Island banking crisis of the early 1990s, hundreds of thousands of people lost access to their money?
- ... that for 70 years, Jerusalem customers have done their banking in an eclectic mansion on Jaffa Road?
- ... that the royal purple 1935 commemorative banknote for the silver jubilee of George V is the only $25 banknote ever issued by the Bank of Canada?
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Selected images
Large door to an old bank vault.
Branch of Nepal Bank in Pokhara, Western Nepal.
OTP Bank in Prešov (Slovakia)
The Bank of England, established in 1694.
An AMRO bank in 1973
A Banco do Brasil office in São Paulo, Brazil, the bank is the largest financial institution in Brazil and Latin America.
An HSBC branch in Markham, Ontario.
An HSBC Canada branch in Richmond Hill, Ontario
Branch of the Standard Bank of Canada in Markham, Ontario, shown in 1912.
An interior of a branch of National Westminster Bank on Castle Street, Liverpool
An American bank in Maryland.
National Bank of the Republic, Salt Lake City 1908
Bank of Finland strong box which moved to Helsinki with the bank when it relocated from Turku.
A former building society, now a modern retail bank in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
Bank of Commerce in Regina, 1910
Among many other things, the Code of Hammurabi from 1754 BC recorded interest-bearing loans.
National Copper Bank, Salt Lake City 1911
Sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694), by Lady Jane Lindsay, 1905.
Citibank, The People's Trust Company Building, Brooklyn, New York City.
Standard Bank of Canada branch in Brechin, Ontario. Empty as of 2014, the building was later used as a Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce branch, until they moved to the other side of the street.
A branch of Union Bank in, Visakhapatnam
The Bank of Finland, Helsinki, with the statue of Johan Vilhelm Snellman in front
Global headquarters of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel
HSBC Bank Canada headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Suburban bank branch
An HSBC Bank Canada branch in Yorkville, Toronto.
A NatWest mobile banking van in the town of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England. The van visits Berkeley for two hours each Thursday following the closure of the town's NatWest branch in 2015.
Safra National Bank, New York
Carved sign for The Standard Bank of Canada, in Brechin, Ontario.
A branch of Banco de Oro in Metro Manila, Philippines
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In the news
- 9 August 2019 –
- The International Monetary Fund finds that China's currency, the yuan, has been "broadly stable" against other currencies over the last year. The yuan is pulled down by market pressures due to the slowing economy. Suggesting little intervention by China's central bank, the IMF position is at odds with the designation of China by the U.S. as a currency manipulator. (AP News)
