Business text: Banking
Transactions carried on by any individual or firm engaged in providing financial services to consumers, businesses, or government enterprises are called banking. In the broadest sense, a bank is a financial intermediary that performs one or more of the following functions: safeguards and transfers funds, lends or facilitates lending, guarantees creditworthiness, and exchanges money. Such institutions as commercial banks, central banks, savings banks, trust companies, finance companies, life insurers, and investment bankers provide these services.
A narrower and more common definition of a bank is a financial intermediary that accepts, transfers, and, most important, creates deposits. This includes such depository institutions as central banks, commercial banks, savings and loan associations, and mutual savings banks.
Banks are most frequently organized in corporate form and are owned either by private individuals, governments, or a combination of private and government interests. Although no corporate banks-that is, single proprietorships and partnerships-are found in other countries, since 1863 all federally chartered banks in the