"Banks"

clipped from hughhewitt.townhall.com According to the FDIC there are nearly 8,300 banks in the United States.  However, if you look at the Federal Reserve’s report on consumer credit, you will note that banks provided at little more than a third of the total loans.  A quarter of all consumer credit was provided by securitized pools, so-called “asset-backed” securities. If you look at mortgages on 1-4 family residences, once again you will see that banks provide less than 30% of such mortgages and that securitized pools represent over two thirds of all mortgages outstanding. We have only reviewed two categories of debt, but you get the picture.  If you consider commercial loans, then the nearly $2 trillion commercial paper market and public debt markets come into play and are outside of most all commercial and savings banks. So who are the lenders besides the 8,300 “banks?”  They are insurance companies, money market funds, brokerage houses, hedge funds, off-shore banks, and governmental funds