Finance (General), Financial Institutions, Personal Finance, Insurance

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Financial Institutions

• traditional financial system built around intermediaries: banks, brokerages, stock, or commodity exchanges, and asset managers; Source: WSJ 

• federal and state agencies in America oversee financial institutions and markets:

  • banks regulated by: Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and state banking commissions

  • brokerages, asset managers, stock exchanges: overseen by the SEC (also sets disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies)

  • trading venues for futures and other derivatives: regulated by Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)

• largest financial institutions in America: Source: Visual Capitalist

  • Banks and Credit Unions (4,750 commercial banks and 4,604 credit unions) : 35% of major institution assets

    • America's largest banks: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank

  • Mutual Funds: 27%

    • 7,222 funds in America

    • 50% of American households invest in mutual funds

  • Insurance Companies: 17%

    • life insurance firms (majority)

    • largest: New York Life Group and Northwestern Mutual Group

  • Hedge Funds: 14%

  • Broker-Dealers: 7%

Overall Finance

• financial centers facilitate capital flow, trade, and innovation; top financial centers: New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles; Source: Visual Capitalist

Personal Finance

• key topics to test financial literacy: social security benefits, medicare coverage of healthcare expenses, employment-based retirement savings, ensuring lifetime income, life expectancy in retirement; Source: Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America

• balancing a checkbook: comparing a checkbook to a bank statement and reviewing bank transactions (helps bring attention to any banking errors), requires: checkbook register, checking account statement, calculator; if you choose to opt out of paper statements from your bank to avoid paying a monthly bank maintenance fee you may print your online statement or download it from your online account; Source: Business Insider

Insurance

• insurance deserts: region where insurers either heavily reduce or stop offering coverage since they are deemed high risk generally due to the increased frequency of climate-related extreme weather; nationally: insurance premiums will either rise or be withdrawn; rising incidences of extreme weather create unsustainable costs for insurance industry; Source: World Economic Forum

• State Farm is California's largest insurance company; Source: Washington Post