Banking Industry

By: EconomyWatch   Date: 9 September 2010

The Banking Industry was once a simple and reliable business that took deposits from investors at a lower interest rate and loaned it out to borrowers at a higher rate.

However deregulation and technology led to a revolution in the Banking Industry that saw it transformed. Banks have become global industrial powerhouses that have created ever more complex products that use risk and securitisation in models that only PhD students can understand. Through technology development, banking services have become available 24 hours a day, 365 days a week, through ATMs, at online bankings, and in electronically enabled exchanges where everything from stocks to currency futures contracts can be traded .

The Banking Industry at its core provides access to credit. In the lenders case, this includes access to their own savings and investments, and interest payments on those amounts. In the case of borrowers, it includes access to loans for the creditworthy, at a competitive interest rate.

Banking services include transactional services, such as verification of account details, account balance details and the transfer of funds, as well as advisory services, that help individuals and institutions to properly plan and manage their finances. Online banking channels have become key in the last 10 years.

The collapse of the Banking Industry in the Financial Crisis, however, means that some of the more extreme risk-taking and complex securitisation activities that banks increasingly engaged in since 2000 will be limited and carefully watched, to ensure that there is not another bankingsystem meltdown in the future.

Mortgage banking has been encompassing for the publicity or promotion of the various mortgage loans to investors as well as individuals in the mortgage business.

Online banking services has developed the banking practices easier worldwide.

Banking in the small business sector plays an important role. Find various banking services available for small businesses.