Answer:
1.1 Core Functions of the Financial Sector
Although they are often thought of as recent phenomena, financial and payment systems have evolved over several thousand years. The manner in which transactions occur has changed remarkably over that time, but the underlying objectives have not. The economic functions performed by the first modern banks of Renaissance Italy, for instance, still apply today (Freixas and Rochet 2008).
At least four core functions can be identified.[1] The financial sector should provide the following services:
Value exchange: a way of making payments.
Intermediation: a way of transferring resources between savers and borrowers.
Risk transfer: a means for pricing and allocating certain risks.
Liquidity: a means of converting assets into cash without undue loss of value.
These are all valuable tools for a community to have. The modern economy could not have developed without the financial sector also developing these capabilities. Moreover, these core functions require the financial sector to have certain supporting capabilities, such as the ability to screen and monitor borrowers. In principle, each of these functions could be performed by individuals. But there are efficiency benefits from having institutions perform them, particularly in addressing some of the informational asymmetries that arise in financial transactions.
The provision of these core functions can overlap and interact in important ways. For example, some financial products, such as deposits, combine value exchange, intermediation, risk transfer and liquidity services. With these interactions in mind, each core function is considered in more detail below.
