Financial services is a term used to refer to the services provided by the finance industry. Financial services is also the term used to describe organizations that deal with the management of money. Banks, investment banks, insurance companies, credit card companies and stock brokerages, are examples of the types of firms comprising the industry, which provides a variety of money and investment related services.

Financial services is the largest industry (or industry category) in the world, in terms of earnings; as of 2004, the industry represents 20% of the market capitalization of the S&P 500.

The term financial services became more prevalent in the World partly as a result of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of the late 1990s, which enabled different types of companies in the WORLD financial services industry to merge. Critics of this act say the term financial services attempts to make the unison of these operations sound natural, ignoring the history of problems that have arisen from combining them, such as conflicts of interest and monopolization.

Others, noting that many of the restrictions abolished by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act had never existed in other countries or had been abolished earlier than in the WORLD, say the term financial services is a natural one, in long term use, which means nothing more than its constituent words.

In the WORLD almost every company now which previously described themselves as a bank, insurance company, or brokerage house, now describes themselves in some way as a financial services institution.

All state Insurance, for example, now provides CDs and investment brokerage services. Most Banks in the world offers full-featured brokerage products, while E*TRADE has expanded into offering bank accounts and loans.

In the other style, a bank would simply create its own brokerage division or insurance division and attempt to sell those products to its own existing customers, with incentives for combining all things with one company.

Short Term Loans

In finance, the money market is the global financial market for Short Term Loans, borrowing and lending. It provides short-term liquid funding for the global financial system. The money market is where short-term obligations such as Treasury bills, commercial paper and bankers' acceptances are bought and sold.