Non-bank financial institution

A non-bank financial institution (NBFI) is a financial institution that does not have a full banking license or is not supervised by a national or international banking regulatory agency. NBFIs facilitate bank-related financial services, such as investment, risk pooling, contractual savings, and . Examples of these include insurance firms, pawn shops, cashier's check issuers, check cashing locations, payday lending, currency exchanges, and microloan organizations.Alan Greenspan has identified the role of NBFIs in strengthening an economy, as they provide "multiple alternatives to transform an economy's savings into capital investment [which] act as backup facilities should the primary form of intermediation fail."

Operations of non-bank financial institutions are often still covered under a country's banking regulations.

NBFIs supplement banks by providing the infrastructure to allocate surplus resources to individuals and companies with deficits. Additionally, NBFIs also introduces competition in the provision of financial services. While banks may offer a set of financial services as a packaged deal, NBFIs unbundle and tailor these service to meet the needs of specific clients. Additionally, individual NBFIs may specialize in one particular sector and develop an informational advantage. Through the process of unbundling, targeting, and specializing, NBFIs enhances competition within the financial services industry.

Non-bank financial companies (NBFCs) offer most sorts of banking services, such as loans and credit facilities, private education funding, retirement planning, trading in money markets, underwriting stocks and shares, TFCs(Term Finance Certificate) and other obligations. These institutions also provide wealth management such as managing portfolios of stocks and shares, discounting services e.g. discounting of instruments and advice on merger and acquisition activities. The number of non-banking financial companies has expanded greatly in the last several years as venture capital companies, retail and industrial companies have entered the lending business. Non-bank institutions also frequently support investments in property and prepare feasibility, market or industry studies for companies. However they are typically not allowed to take deposits from the general public and have to find other means of funding their operations such as issuing debt instruments.

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