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Financial institutions, otherwise known as banking institutions, are corporations that provide services as intermediaries of financial markets. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial institutions:
- Depository 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
- Investment institutions – investment banks, underwriters, brokerage firms.
Microfinance is a category of financial services targeted at individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings and checking accounts; microinsurance; and payment systems. Microfinance services are designed to reach excluded customers, usually poorer population segments, possibly socially marginalized, or geographically more isolated, and to help them become self-sufficient.
Financial services are the economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, accountancy companies, consumer-finance companies, stock brokerages, investment funds, individual managers and some government-sponsored enterprises. Financial services companies are present in all economically developed geographic locations and tend to cluster in local, national, regional and international financial centers such as London, New York City, and Tokyo.
A financial intermediary is an institution or individual that serves as a middleman among diverse parties in order to facilitate financial transactions. Common types include commercial banks, investment banks, stockbrokers, pooled investment funds, and stock exchanges. Financial intermediaries reallocate otherwise uninvested capital to productive enterprises through a variety of debt, equity, or hybrid stakeholding structures.
A financial transaction is an agreement, or communication, carried out between a buyer and a seller to exchange an asset for payment.
A 'financial system' is a system that allows the exchange of funds between lenders, investors, and borrowers. Financial systems operate at national and global levels. They consist of complex, closely related services, markets, and institutions intended to provide an efficient and regular linkage between investors and depositors.
Cooperative banking is retail and commercial banking organized on a cooperative basis. Cooperative banking institutions take deposits and lend money in most parts of the world.
Micro financing in Tanzania started in 1995 with SACCOS and NGOs. It has since then contributed to the increasing success of international micro financing. Microfinance stills remains a relatively new in Tanzania since it has not penetrated yet. Since 1995, microfinance has been linked to poverty alleviation programs and women. The government made efforts to ensure commercial banks have continued to provide financial support to the small entrepreneurial business. However a microfinance National Policy was implemented in 2002 to encourage and support microfinances in the country. Since the implementation, micro financing was officially launched and recognized as a poverty alleviation tool. Due to its increase exposure and use in the nation, commercial banks have developed interests in to offer microfinance. There are various microfinance banks that functions as supporting institutions in the country that usually provide microfinance services. These may include the CRDB, National Microfinance Bank, and AKIBA. However there are also other few banks that are concerned with micro financing in Tanzania such as the PRIDE and SEDA, Tanzania Postal Bank and FINCA. Community and small banks have also expressed interest in the same including the NGOs and other non-profit organizations.
Village banking is a microcredit methodology whereby financial services are administered locally rather than centralized in a formal bank. Village banking has its roots in ancient cultures and was most recently adopted for use by micro-finance institutions (MFIs) as a way to control costs. Early MFI village banking methods were innovated by Grameen Bank and then later developed by groups such as FINCA International founder John Hatch. Among US-based non-profit agencies there are at least 31 microfinance institutions (MFIs) that have collectively created over 800 village banking programs in at least 90 countries. And in many of these countries there are host-country MFIs—sometimes dozens—that are village banking practitioners as well.
A rotating savings and credit association (ROSCA) is a group of individuals who agree to meet for a defined period in order to save and borrow together, a form of combined peer-to-peer banking and peer-to-peer lending.
A self-help group (SHG) is a financial intermediary committee usually composed of 25 to 40 local women or men. Most self-help groups are located in India, though SHGs can be found in other countries, especially in South Asia and Southeast Asia. SHG is nothing but a group of people who are on daily wages, they form a group and from that group one person collects the money and gives the money to the person who is in need.
A CVECA is a self-reliant village savings and credit bank. CVECAs are designed to operate in rural areas with clients who are primarily subsistence farmers, with minimal non-farm income. While most banks have less than 250 members, they achieve service flexibility and economies of scale through networking together into regional federations. "Each bank is managed by 2 part-time local staff and a board composed of members, all of whom have minimal education."
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates credit. Lending activities can be performed either directly or indirectly through capital markets. Due to their importance in the financial stability of a country, banks are highly regulated in most countries. Most nations have institutionalized a system known as fractional reserve banking under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, known as the Basel Accords.
Mahamudu Bawumia is a Ghanaian economist and banker and the current Vice President of Ghana. He assumed office on 7 January 2017.
Agricultural Development Bank of Ghana, commonly known as Agricultural Development Bank or ADB, is a government-owned development and commercial bank in Ghana. The bank is the first development finance institution established by the Government of Ghana. It is one of the commercial banks licensed by the Bank of Ghana, the national banking regulator.
A susu or sou-sou is a form of rotating savings and credit association, a type of informal savings club arrangement between a small group of people who take turns by "throwing hand" as the partners call it. The name is used in Africa and the Caribbean. The basic principle is that each member of the group makes a standard contribution to a common fund once per time period. Then each period the total contributions are disbursed to a single member of the group. The recipient changes each period in a rotating fashion such that all the members of the group are eventually recipients.
A deposit account is a savings account, current account or any other type of bank account that allows money to be deposited and withdrawn by the account holder. These transactions are recorded on the bank's books, and the resulting balance is recorded as a liability for the bank and represents the amount owed by the bank to the customer. Some banks may charge a fee for this service, while others may pay the customer interest on the funds deposited.
Collaborative finance is a category of financial transaction that occurs directly between individuals without the intermediation of a traditional financial institution. This new way to manage informal financial transactions has been enabled by advances in social media and peer-to-peer online platforms. The wide variety of collaborative finance resources may vary not only in their organizational and operational aspects, but also by geographical region, share of the financial market etc. It is precisely this heterogeneity that enables the informal savings and credit activity to profitably reach those income-groups not served by commercial banks and other financial institutions. It is their informality, adaptability and flexibility of operations – characteristics which reduce their transactions costs and confers upon them their comparative advantage and economic rationale. Collaborative Finance is characterized by highly personalized loan transactions entailing face-to-face dealings with borrowers and flexibility in respect of loan purpose, interest rates, collateral requirements, maturity periods and debt rescheduling.
Ernest Aryeetey, is the Secretary-General of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) and a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana.
Capital Bank was an indigenous private national development and commercial Ghanaian bank. It was one of the private national development and commercial banks licensed by Bank of Ghana, the national banking regulator. On August 14, 2017, the bank of Ghana announced it had revoked its license. The bank was taken over subsequently by GCB Bank.
References
- ↑ Aryeetey, Ernest and Udry, Christopher."The Characteristics of Informal Financial Markets in Africa" October, 1995.
- ↑ "Linking formal and informal financial intermediaries in Ghana", Overseas Development Institute November 2000. Retrieved on January 9 2015.
- ↑ Money-go-rounds . Retrieved 2011-12-25.