commercial bank

(noun)

A type of financial institution that provides services such as accepting deposits, making business loans, and offering basic investment products to the public.

Related Terms

  • money multiplier
  • central bank

Examples of commercial bank in the following topics:

  • Commercial Banks

    • Commercial banks enable business by providing access to resources and risk-mitigating exchanges.
    • Commercial banks are financial institutions that focus on enabling the exchange of capital and currency via a variety of services.
    • For the most part, the term commercial bank refers to divisions of banks that deal primarily with mid-sized to large businesses.
    • While banks offer other services in addition to these, the primary function of commercial banks is to act as a critical resource for businesses to access capital, enable investments, and mitigate risks.
    • Perceive the role of commercial banks from the business sense, and recognize the variety of risks banks encounter as a result
  • Commercial Banks

    • A commercial bank lends money, accepts time deposits, and provides transactional, savings, and money market accounts.
    • Commercial banks provide a number of loans.
    • Commercial banks may also provide unsecured loans, which are monetary loans that are not secured against the borrower's assets (i.e., no collateral is involved).
    • Accessing funds through a commercial bank is very typical, and a common way of accessing funds when in need, particularly in the case of small or entrepreneurial businesses.
    • A commercial bank (or business bank) is a type of financial institution and intermediary.
  • The Money Multiplier in Theory

    • The money multiplier measures the maximum amount of commercial bank money that can be created by a given unit of central bank money.
    • When you think of money, what you probably imagine is commercial bank money.
    • This money is created when commercial banks make loans to companies or individuals.
    • The money multiplier measures the maximum amount of commercial bank money that can be created by a given unit of central bank money.
    • That is, in a fractional-reserve banking system, the total amount of loans that commercial banks are allowed to extend (the commercial bank money that they can legally create) is a multiple of reserves; this multiple is the reciprocal of the reserve ratio.
  • Depository Institutions

    • Commercial banks are the largest and dominate the depository institutions.
    • First, the bank deposits are liquid.
    • Consequently, commercial banks are important for a community because its role of accepting deposits and granting loans.
    • Credit unions are similar to commercial banks except they restrict membership.
    • Consequently, the commercial banks want credit unions on equal grounds with commercial banks because a credit union does not pay income taxes on its profit.
  • Control of the Money Supply

    • Commercial banks, as required by the central bank, must keep a fraction of all accepted deposits on reserve either in bank vaults or in central bank deposits.
    • Accordingly, a nation's central bank can maintain control of such reserves by lending to commercial banks and altering the rate of interest to be charged on such loans.
    • In determining a nation's money supply, its central bank first sets the supply of the monetary base and upholds certain restrictions on the value of assets and liabilities held by smaller commercial banks.
    • A nation's central bank is also responsible for supplying commercial banks with enough currency to meet consumer demand.
    • Central banks may alter the total money supply by changing the required percentage of total deposits to be held by commercial banks.
  • The Glass Steagall Banking Act

    • Politicians and the public thought commercial banks should not underwrite new stock and bonds for corporations because they believed banks were underwriting "risky" securities.
    • This law divided the functions of investment banking and commercial banking.
    • A commercial bank is a standard bank while an investment banker markets and sells brand new stocks and bonds.
    • The FDIC, a public corporation, insures the deposits of each depositor in commercial banks up to$250,000.
    • Every commercial bank that is a member of FDIC must pay approximately $100,000 per year.
  • The United States Banking System

    • The McFadden Act prohibited a commercial bank from opening a branch in another state.
    • Unit banking restricts a bank to a single geographical location, such as in one city, and the bank cannot branch to other cities.
    • Furthermore, branch banking allows a bank to have two or more banking offices owned by a single banking corporation within a geographical area.
    • Different institutions evolved in the United States that differ from commercial banks.
    • They include savings institutions and credit unions, and they are not commercial banks.
  • A Bank Failure

    • A central bank, for example, requires commercial banks to hold 10% of deposits in the form of vault cash and/or reserves at the central bank.
    • Bank borrows the funds from the central bank or from another commercial bank.
    • How does a bank prevent a bank failure?
    • For example, a bank grants loans for credit cards, mortgages where the homes are spread across the state, and commercial loans for hotels, restaurants, retail stores, and factories.
    • If a factory bankrupts and defaults on its commercial loan, the loan default does not harm the bank severely because the bank is earning income on the other loans.
  • Answers to Chapter 2 Questions

    • Bank deposits are liquid.
    • Treasury bills (T-bills), commercial paper, banker's acceptances, negotiable bank certificates of deposit (CDs), repurchase agreements, Federal Funds, and Eurodollars.
    • A contagion is one bank run leads to other bank runs, even for financially healthy banks.
    • First, a bank acquires stock in another bank, allowing it to cross a state line.
    • Second, bank can issue commercial paper on itself and transfer funds between subsidiaries.
  • Online Direct Banks

    • A direct bank is a bank without any branch network.
    • Direct banks were originally based on providing banking services via telephone.
    • The commercialization of the Internet in the early 1990s was the biggest driver in the creation of direct banking models.
    • Upon realizing this, traditional banks began to offer limited online banking services.
    • The initial success of internet banking services provided by traditional banks led to the development of internet-only banks or "virtual banks. " These banks were designed without a traditional banking infrastructure, a cost-saving feature that allowed many of them to offer savings accounts with higher interest rates and loans with lower interest rates than most traditional banks.
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