What Is a Merchant Bank?
A merchant bank is quite different from the type of bank that can be found on a high street. This is not somewhere to go when you want to withdraw money or deposit checks. Merchant banks are not aimed at satisfying the needs of the general public. Instead they focus on other functions such as big business loans, stock underwriting, and international finance. These institutions can be responsible for huge sums of money. Their typical customer will be other banks or financial institutions. They are sometimes referred to as wholesale banks because they work in a similar way to wholesalers for shops.
