Finance Guide

Financial services are services related to handling and managing money, usually provided on a commercial basis. Examples include banking, insurance, currency exchange, mortgage provision and facilities for borrowing money such as credit cards, car loans, and online payday loans.

In the modern world, banking has become a financial service which it can be very difficult to do without. In the past, many people, particularly those at the lower end of the economic spectrum, were able to live entirely on a cash basis. They would have received payment from their employers in cash and would then have spent or saved that money directly, without contact with any financial institution. More recently, many employers have required that their employees have bank accounts in order to receive payment. As a result, some governments have taken steps to encourage banks to provide banking services to poorer people, something they have often been reluctant to do because of its non-profitability.

Many banks market a wide range of financial services to their clients, using the information which they naturally glean from their awareness of the customer’s financial situation to make suitable offers to them and to assess the customer as a risk prospect. Although in some countries banking services are provided for free and therefore at a loss from the bank’s perspective, the banks usually expect to earn money through the marketing of other services to the customer.