Consumer banking

Retail banking, also known as consumer banking, is the provision of services by a bank to individual consumers, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks. Services offered include savings and transactional accounts, mortgages, personal loans, debit cards, and credit cards. The term is generally used to distinguish these banking services from investment banking, commercial banking or wholesale banking. It may also be used to refer to a division or department of a bank dealing with retail customers.

In the U.S., the term commercial bank is used for a normal bank to distinguish it from an investment bank. After the Great Depression, through the Glass–Steagall Act, the U.S. Congress required that banks only engage in banking activities, whereas investment banks were limited to capital markets activities. This separation was repealed in the 1990s. Commercial bank can also refer to a bank or a division of a bank that mostly deals with deposits and loans from corporations or large businesses, as opposed to individual members of the public (retail banking).

Typical products offered by a retail bank include:

In some countries, such as the U.S., they may also offer more specialised accounts such as:

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