The different types of actors

Banks: banking is strictly regulated and defined precisely by the authorisation to collect public savings and to use them to distribute credit. Banks, depending on their specialisation (or lack thereof), may operate at all market levels: investment, hedging, trading, services, etc.

Institutional investors : this category, which includes insurance companies, pension and investment funds, seeks to manage large amounts of assets with a view to meeting clients' goals of investment return and safety. They are essential players on financial markets.

Corporate investors : this term designates players, who are neither banks nor financial firms. The big multinational companies are major clients for banks, based on their financing, hedging or investment needs.

Information providers : these companies bring together share prices, rates and miscellaneous information and distribute it in real time to their clients.

Central banks : aside from their oversight and regulatory roles, central banks intervene directly in banking as lenders of last resort and as coordinators of money flows within a country.

Correspondent banks : for any given bank, its network of correspondent banks consists of all the banks abroad in which it has opened cash accounts in order to make currency payments.

Custodian banks : just as correspondent banks manage the currency accounts of their clients, custodians manage their clients' securities.

Clearing houses : agencies that coordinate settlement and delivery of trades or cash transactions.

Brokers : individuals or firms acting as intermediaries on an organised market or as transaction facilitators on an over-the-counter market.

Organised markets : a market, in which the various counterparties, operating incognito, deal with a single counterparty who guarantees transaction settlement and delivery.

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