At a certain moment, there are economic agents that need money resources to carry out their spending plans and others that have available resources that they do not need to use until a future moment.
The essential function of the financial system is to be able to channel resources from agents with financing capacity to those in need of financing.
There are two fundamental ways to carry out this transfer of resources:
- Directly through the securities markets, which allow companies and Public Governments to get resources. In this case, the saver directly takes the risk with the institution that receive the resources.
- Indirectly through bank intermediation. In this case, the saver delivers their money to a bank, which is the one that takes the risk of granting loans to individuals, companies or Public Governments.
The set of institutions, means and markets established around this activity configures the financial system.
In recent years, alternative formulas have been emerging to carry out this transfer of resources, based on the collaborative economy and technological development. This is the case, for example, of what is known as “crowdfunding”.
