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Category
Financial institutions
Summary
Financial institutions, sometimes called banking institutions, are business entities that provide services as intermediaries for different types of financial monetary transactions. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial institutions:
Depository institutions – deposit-taking institutions that accept and manage deposits and make loans, including banks, building societies, credit unions, trust companies, and mortgage loan companies;
Contractual institutions – insurance companies and pension funds
Investment institutions – investment banks, underwriters, and other different types of financial entities managing investments.
Financial institutions can be distinguished broadly into two categories according to ownership structure:
Commercial banks
Cooperative banks
Some experts see a trend toward homogenisation of financial institutions, meaning a tendency to invest in similar areas and have similar business strategies. A consequence of this might be fewer banks serving specific target groups, and small-scale producers may be under-served. This is why a target of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 is to improve the regulation and monitoring of global financial institutions and strengthen such regulations.
Standard Settlement Instructions (SSIs) are the agreements between two financial institutions which fix the receiving agents of each counterparty in ordinary trades of some type. These agreements allow the related counterparties to make faster operations since the time used to settle the receiving agents is conserved. Limiting each subject to an SSI also lowers the likelihood of a fraud. SSIs are used by financial institutions to facilitate fast and accurate cross-border payments.
Financial institutions in most countries operate in a heavily regulated environment because they are critical parts of countries' economies, due to economies' dependence on them to grow the money supply via fractional-reserve banking. Regulatory structures differ in each country, but typically involve prudential regulation as well as consumer protection and market stability.
Official source
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