Non-bank financial institution

A non-bank financial institution (NBFI) is a financial institution that does not have a full banking license or is not supervised by a national or international banking regulatory agency. NBFIs facilitate bank-related financial services, such as investment, risk pooling, contractual savings, and market brokering. Examples of these include insurance firms, pawn shops, cashier's check issuers, check cashing locations, payday lending, currency exchanges, and microloan organizations.Alan Greenspan has identified the role of NBFIs in strengthening an economy, as they provide "multiple alternatives to transform an economy's savings into capital investment [which] act as backup facilities should the primary form of intermediation fail."

Role in financial system

NBFIs supplement banks by providing the infrastructure to allocate surplus resources to individuals and companies with deficits. Additionally, NBFIs also introduces competition in the provision of financial services. While banks may offer a set of financial services as a packaged deal, NBFIs unbundle and tailor these service to meet the needs of specific clients. Additionally, individual NBFIs may specialize in one particular sector and develop an informational advantage. Through the process of unbundling, targeting, and specializing, NBFIs enhances competition within the financial services industry.

Financial institution

In finance and economics, a financial institution is an institution that provides financial services for its clients or members. One of the most important financial services provided by a financial institution is acting as a financial intermediary. Most financial institutions are regulated by the government.

Function

Financial institutions provide services as intermediaries of financial markets. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial institutions:

Depositary 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; and

Investment institutions – investment banks, underwriters, brokerage firms.

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, for example small-scale producers could be under served.

Non-banking financial company

Non-bank financial companies (NBFCs) are financial institutions that provide banking services without meeting the legal definition of a bank, i.e. one that does not hold a banking license. These institutions typically are restricted from taking deposits from the public depending on the jurisdiction. Nonetheless, operations of these institutions are often still covered under a country's banking regulations.

The specific banking products that can be offered by NBFCs depends on the jurisdiction, and may include services such as loans and credit facilities, savings products, investments and money transfer services. In some jurisdictions, such as New Zealand, any company can engage in banking business, except they are not allowed to use the word bank in their name. A company can only call itself a bank if it is a registered as such with the nation's central bank.

Services provided

NBFCs offer most sorts of banking services, such as loans and credit facilities, private education funding, retirement planning, trading in money markets, underwriting stocks and shares, TFCs(Term Finance Certificate) and other obligations. These institutions also provide wealth management such as managing portfolios of stocks and shares, discounting services e.g. discounting of instruments and advice on merger and acquisition activities. The number of non-banking financial companies has expanded greatly in the last several years as venture capital companies, retail and industrial companies have entered the lending business. Non-bank institutions also frequently support investments in property and prepare feasibility, market or industry studies for companies.