The Financial services industry encompasses a wide variety of businesses. These include Banks, Credit unions, Insurance companies, and Tax and accounting firms. These organizations provide many types of financial services to individuals and businesses, including loans, credit, and insurance. These companies are a vital part of the economy. Without their help, the economy would not be as stable as it is today.
Banks
Banks provide a wide range of financial services to individual and corporate clients. The services that banks offer are varied and include asset finance, mortgages, and insurance. These institutions also offer leasing facilities. Leasing facilities allow clients to rent assets for an income stream. Other services provided by merchant banks include securities underwriting and issue management. They also manage portfolios and provide term loans.
Credit unions
Credit unions provide a range of financial services to their members. They provide loans, savings accounts, and other services at low rates of interest. They are non-profit organizations, which allows them to adopt more liberal policies. They also offer education and counseling for members.
Tax and accounting firms
Tax and accounting firms provide a wide range of financial services, including tax preparation and filing. They also offer currency exchange, wire transfer, and credit card machine and network services. In addition, some of these organizations provide debt resolution services and global payment services, including Visa and MasterCard.
Insurance companies
Insurance companies provide financial services that protect clients from loss of income or property. They also protect their clients from liability or lawsuits. The insurance industry includes many different subsectors. Some insurers provide insurance to individuals while others offer commercial coverage to businesses. The insurance industry also includes reinsurers, which sell insurance to insurers to cover catastrophic losses.
Private equity firms
Private equity firms focus on generating value in portfolio companies through a variety of strategies. In general, these strategies aim to exit the company at a high profit. These exits usually occur three to seven years after the initial investment, but can take longer depending on the strategic circumstances of the firm. Often, value is captured at the exit through cost cutting, increasing revenues, and optimizing working capital. Other exit methods include selling the company at a higher price than it was acquired for or through an Initial Public Offering.
Payments and digital banking
Major tech companies have been trying to disrupt the payments space for years. Although the ‘Pays’ (Apple, Samsung, Google) haven’t taken off the way many had hoped, other payment providers have proven to be more disruptive to traditional banking relationships. Banks need to prioritize payments solutions that help them keep up with the rapidly growing number of payment options.