The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of financial panics led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises. Over the years, events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession during the 2000s have led to the expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System.
Monetary policy concerns the actions of a central bank or other regulatory authorities that determine the size and rate of growth of the money supply. For example, in the United States, the Federal Reserve is in charge of monetary policy, and implements it primarily by performing operations that influence short-term interest rates.
Financial regulation is a form of regulation or supervision, which subjects financial institutions to certain requirements, restrictions and guidelines, aiming to maintain the stability and integrity of the financial system. This may be handled by either a government or non-government organization. Financial regulation has also influenced the structure of banking sectors by increasing the variety of financial products available. Financial regulation forms one of three legal categories which constitutes the content of financial law, the other two being market practices and case law.
A banking license is a legal prerequisite for a financial institution that wants to carry on a banking business. Under the laws of most jurisdictions, a business is not permitted to carry words like a bank, insurance, national in their name, unless it holds a corresponding license. Depending to their banking regulations, jurisdictions may offer different types of banking licenses, such as
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned financial cooperative, controlled by its members and operated on a not-for-profit basis. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provision of credit, and other financial services. In several African countries, credit unions are commonly referred to as SACCOs.
Full-reserve banking is a system of banking where banks do not lend demand deposits and instead, only lend from time deposits. It differs from fractional-reserve banking, in which banks may lend funds on deposit, while fully reserved banks would be required to keep the full amount of each depositor's funds in cash, ready for immediate withdrawal on demand.
Bank fraud is the use of potentially illegal means to obtain money, assets, or other property owned or held by a financial institution, or to obtain money from depositors by fraudulently posing as a bank or other financial institution. In many instances, bank fraud is a criminal offence. While the specific elements of particular banking fraud laws vary depending on jurisdictions, the term bank fraud applies to actions that employ a scheme or artifice, as opposed to bank robbery or theft. For this reason, bank fraud is sometimes considered a white-collar crime.
A payday loan is a short-term unsecured loan, often characterized by high interest rates.
Cheque fraud, or check fraud, refers to a category of criminal acts that involve making the unlawful use of cheques in order to illegally acquire or borrow funds that do not exist within the account balance or account-holder's legal ownership. Most methods involve taking advantage of the float to draw out these funds. Specific kinds of cheque fraud include cheque kiting, where funds are deposited before the end of the float period to cover the fraud, and paper hanging, where the float offers the opportunity to write fraudulent cheques but the account is never replenished.
A cashier's check is a check guaranteed by a bank, drawn on the bank's own funds and signed by a cashier. Cashier's checks are treated as guaranteed funds because the bank, rather than the purchaser, is responsible for paying the amount. They are commonly required for real estate and brokerage transactions.
Cash management refers to a broad area of finance involving the collection, handling, and usage of cash. It involves assessing market liquidity, cash flow, and investments.
The Expedited Funds Availability Act was enacted in 1987 by the United States Congress for the purpose of standardizing hold periods on deposits made to commercial banks and to regulate institutions' use of deposit holds. It is also referred to as Regulation CC or Reg CC, after the Federal Reserve regulation that implements the act. The law is codified in Title 12, Chapter 41 of the US Code and Title 12, Part 229 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
The substitute check is a negotiable instrument that represents the digital reproduction of an original paper check. As a negotiable payment instrument in the United States, a substitute check maintains the status of a "legal check" in lieu of the original paper check as authorized by the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act. Instead of presenting the original paper checks, financial institutions and payment processing centers transmit data from a substitute check electronically through either the settlement process, the United States Federal Reserve System, or by clearing the deposit based on a private agreement between member financial institutions of a clearinghouse that operates under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).
Bank regulation in the United States is highly fragmented compared with other G10 countries, where most countries have only one bank regulator. In the U.S., banking is regulated at both the federal and state level. Depending on the type of charter a banking organization has and on its organizational structure, it may be subject to numerous federal and state banking regulations. Apart from the bank regulatory agencies the U.S. maintains separate securities, commodities, and insurance regulatory agencies at the federal and state level, unlike Japan and the United Kingdom. Bank examiners are generally employed to supervise banks and to ensure compliance with regulations.
The New York State Banking Department was created by the New York Legislature on April 15, 1851, with a chief officer to be known as the Superintendent. The New York State Banking Department was the oldest bank regulatory agency in the United States.
A payment processor is some sort of transactor for financial calculations, technically an invertible currency exchange appointed by a merchant to handle transactions from various channels such as credit cards and debit cards for merchant acquiring banks. They are usually broken down into two types: front-end and back-end.
Credit unions in the United States served 100 million members, comprising 43.7% of the economically active population in 2014. U.S. credit unions are not-for-profit, cooperative, tax-exempt organizations. The clients of the credit unions become partners of the financial institution and their presence focuses in certain neighborhoods because they center their services in one specific community. As of March 2020, the largest American credit union was Navy Federal Credit Union, serving U.S. Department of Defense employees, contractors, and families of servicepeople, with over $125 billion in assets and over 9.1 million members. Total credit union assets in the U.S. reached $1 trillion as of March 2012. Approximately 236,000 people were directly employed by credit unions per data derived from the 2012 National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Credit Union Directory. As of 2019, there were 5,236 credit unions with 120.4 million members, and deposits of $1.22 trillion.
Reserve Requirements for Depository Institutions is a Federal Reserve regulation governing the reserves that banks and credit unions keep to satisfy depositor withdrawals. Although the regulation still requires banks to report the aggregate balances of their deposit accounts to the Federal Reserve, most of its provisions are inactive as a result of policy changes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Alliant Credit Union is a member-owned financial cooperative headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Alliant provides exclusive benefits to employees, retirees, and members of qualifying organizations and their family members; any member of the Foster Care to Success; and individuals who live or work in a qualifying community and their family members. Founded in 1935, Alliant is the eighth largest credit union by asset size in the United States with $9.7 billion USD in assets, and serves over 385,000 members worldwide.
5Linx is an American multi-level marketing company headquartered in Rochester, New York, which offers utility and telecommunication services, health insurance, nutritional supplements, and business services. It was founded in 2001. In 2017, the co-founders of 5LINX, Craig Jerabeck, Jeb Tyler, and Jason Guck, were indicted on multiple federal fraud charges, including wire fraud and money laundering. They admitted to defrauding $2.3 million from investors, illegally depositing company revenues into personal accounts, and failing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. Tyler and Jerabeck were sentenced to 14-month prison terms in December 2018.
