The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. 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.
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is an international financial institution, established in 1944 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, it is the lending arm of World Bank Group. The IBRD offers loans to middle-income developing countries. It is the first of five member institutions that compose the World Bank Group. The initial mission of the IBRD in 1944, was to finance the reconstruction of European nations devastated by World War II. The IBRD and its concessional lending arm, the International Development Association (IDA), are collectively known as the World Bank as they share the same leadership and staff.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private-sector development in less developed countries. The IFC is a member of the World Bank Group and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States.
Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money borrowed or otherwise withheld from another party, the creditor. Debt may be owed by sovereign state or country, local government, company, or an individual. Commercial debt is generally subject to contractual terms regarding the amount and timing of repayments of principal and interest. Loans, bonds, notes, and mortgages are all types of debt. In financial accounting, debt is a type of financial transaction, as distinct from equity.
In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, non-profit making organisations that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budget surplus is used to maintain existing housing and to help finance new homes and it cannot be used for personal benefit of directors or shareholders. Although independent, they are regulated by the state and commonly receive public funding. They are now the United Kingdom's major providers of new housing for rent, while many also run shared ownership schemes to help those who cannot afford to buy a home outright.
The Community Reinvestment Act is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.
Peer-to-peer lending, also abbreviated as P2P lending, is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that match lenders with borrowers. Peer-to-peer lending companies often offer their services online, and attempt to operate with lower overhead and provide their services more cheaply than traditional financial institutions. As a result, lenders can earn higher returns compared to savings and investment products offered by banks, while borrowers can borrow money at lower interest rates, even after the P2P lending company has taken a fee for providing the match-making platform and credit checking the borrower. There is the risk of the borrower defaulting on the loans taken out from peer-lending websites.
A structured investment vehicle (SIV) is a non-bank financial institution established to earn a credit spread between the longer-term assets held in its portfolio and the shorter-term liabilities it issues. They are simple credit spread lenders, frequently "lending" by investing in securitizations, but also by investing in corporate bonds and funding by issuing commercial paper and medium term notes, which were usually rated AAA until the onset of the financial crisis. They did not expose themselves to either interest rate or currency risk and typically held asset to maturity. SIVs differ from asset-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations in that they are permanently capitalized and have an active management team.
The Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) was a statutory body of the UK Government that provided loans to public bodies from the National Loans Fund. In 2020, the PWLB was abolished as a statutory organisation, and its functions were allocated to HM Treasury, where they are discharged through the UK Debt Management Office. The members of the PWLB were known as the Public Works Loan Commissioners.
The 2007 Texas constitutional amendment election took place 6 November 2007.
The subprime mortgage crisis impact timeline lists dates relevant to the creation of a United States housing bubble and the 2005 housing bubble burst and the subprime mortgage crisis which developed during 2007 and 2008. It includes United States enactment of government laws and regulations, as well as public and private actions which affected the housing industry and related banking and investment activity. It also notes details of important incidents in the United States, such as bankruptcies and takeovers, and information and statistics about relevant trends. For more information on reverberations of this crisis throughout the global financial system see 2007–2008 financial crisis.
Public housing policies in Canada includes rent controls, as well as subsidized interest rates and grants. Early public housing policy in Canada consisted of public-private lending schemes which focused on expanding home ownership among the middle class. The first major housing initiative in Canada was the Dominion Housing Act of 1935, which increased the amount of credit available for mortgage loans.
The Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) is a self-perpetuating loan assistance authority for water quality improvement projects in the United States. The fund is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency and state agencies. The CWSRF, which replaced the Clean Water Act Construction Grants program, provides loans for the construction of municipal wastewater facilities and implementation of nonpoint source pollution control and estuary protection projects. Congress established the fund in the Water Quality Act of 1987. Since inception, cumulative assistance has surpassed 153.6 billion dollars as of 2021, and is continuing to grow through interest earnings, principal repayments, and leveraging.
The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) is a program created by the U.S. Federal Reserve to spur consumer credit lending. The program was announced on November 25, 2008, and was to support the issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) collateralized by student loans, auto loans, credit card loans, and loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA). Under TALF, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York authorized up to $200 billion of loans on a non-recourse basis to holders of certain AAA-rated ABS backed by newly and recently originated consumer and small business loans. As TALF money did not originate from the U.S. Treasury, the program did not require congressional approval to disburse funds, but an act of Congress forced the Fed to reveal how it lent the money. The TALF began operation in March 2009 and was closed on June 30, 2010. TALF 2 was initiated in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On March 23, 2009, the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Reserve, and the United States Treasury Department announced the Public–Private Investment Program for Legacy Assets. The program is designed to provide liquidity for so-called "toxic assets" on the balance sheets of financial institutions. This program is one of the initiatives coming out of the implementation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) as implemented by the U.S. Treasury under Secretary Timothy Geithner. The major stock market indexes in the United States rallied on the day of the announcement rising by over six percent with the shares of bank stocks leading the way. As of early June 2009, the program had not been implemented yet and was considered delayed. Yet, the Legacy Securities Program implemented by the Federal Reserve has begun by fall 2009 and the Legacy Loans Program is being tested by the FDIC. The proposed size of the program has been drastically reduced relative to its proposed size when it was rolled out.
Housing discrimination in the United States refers to the historical and current barriers, policies, and biases that prevent equitable access to housing. Housing discrimination became more pronounced after the abolition of slavery in 1865, typically as part of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. The federal government didn't begin to take action against these laws until 1917, when the Supreme Court struck down ordinances prohibiting blacks from occupying or owning buildings in majority-white neighborhoods in Buchanan v. Warley. However, the federal government as well as local governments continued to be directly responsible for housing discrimination through redlining and race-restricted covenants until the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
A local government funding agency (LGFA) or bond bank, or other terms, is financial institution that serves as a vehicle for local government authorities such as municipalities, county councils and regions to access capital markets for the purpose of jointly procuring credit for public investment projects. The local and/or regional authorities of a country or state typically own the LGFA, sometimes with a minor ownership by the state.
A public bank is a bank, a financial institution, in which a state, municipality, or public actors are the owners. It is an enterprise under government control. Prominent among current public banking models are the Bank of North Dakota, the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe in Germany, and many nations’ postal bank systems.
The Mortgage Choice Act of 2013 is a bill that would direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to amend its regulations related to qualified mortgages to reflect new exclusions made by this bill. The CFPB released new regulations regarding the definition of a Qualified Mortgage that took effect in January 2014, a definition that this bill would modify.
A green bank is a financial institution, typically public or quasi-public, that employs innovative financing techniques and market development tools in collaboration with the private sector to expedite the deployment of clean energy technologies. Green banks use public funds to leverage private investment in clean energy technologies that, despite their commercial viability, have struggled to establish a widespread presence in consumer markets. Green banks aim to reduce energy costs for ratepayers, stimulate private sector investment and economic activity, and expedite the transition to a low-carbon economy.
