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 While holding your money, they lend it out to other people or organizations in the form of mortgages or other loans and generate more interest than they pay you.

 When you want your money back, they have to give it back. Fortunately, they usually have enough deposits that they can give you back what you want. That’s not always true, as everyone saw during the Great Depression, but it’s almost always the case. Plus, safeguards are now in place to protect against another Great Depression in the future (at least one that occurs because banks lend out more money than they keep on hand to pay back to their lenders).

The three main types of depository institutions are commercial banks, savings institutions, and credit unions.

Commercial banks are easily the largest type of depository institution. They’re for-profit corporations that are usually owned by private investors. They often offer a wide range of services to consumers and corporations around the world. Often the size of the bank determines the exact scope of the services it offers. For example, smaller community or regional banks typically limit their services to consumer banking and small-business lending, which includes simple deposits, mortgage and consumer loans (such as car, home equity, and so on), small-business banking, small-business loans, and other services with a limited range of markets. Larger national or global banks often also perform services such as money management, foreign exchange services, investing, and investment banking, for large corporations and even other banks like overnight interbank loans. Large commercial banks have the most diverse set of services of all the depository institutions.