Nicolae Sfetcu

A bank run affects just one bank. A banking panic or bank panic is a financial crisis that occurs when many banks suffer runs at the same time. In a systemic banking crisis, all or almost all of the banking capital in a country is wiped out.

The 2008 Russian financial crisis is an ongoing crisis on Russian markets, as nervousness over the global banking crisis has been compounded by political fears after the war with Georgia, as well as renewed concern about state intervention in corporations of strategic interests. Russia's economy is also heavily dependent on energy prices, especially oil which has lost more than a third of its value since its record peak of USD 147 on July 11, 2008.

The term financial crisis is applied broadly to a variety of situations in which some financial institutions or assets suddenly lose a large part of their value. Until a few decades ago, many financial crises were banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these panics. Other situations that are often called financial crises include stock market crashes and the bursting of other financial bubbles, as well as international phenomena like currency crises and sovereign defaults.

A crisis (plural: crises) may occur on a personal or societal level. It may be a traumatic or stressful change in a person's life, or an unstable and dangerous social situation, in political, social, economic, military affairs, or a large-scale environmental event, especially one involving an impending abrupt change. More loosely, it is a term meaning 'a testing time' or 'emergency event'.

Bancassurance is the term used to describe the sale of insurance products in a bank. The word is a combination of "banc" and "assurance" signifying that both banking and insurance is provided by the same corporate entity. The usage of the word picked up as banks and insurance companies merged and banks sought to provide insurance, especially in markets that have been liberalised recently. It is a controversial idea, and many feel it gives banks too great a control over the financial industry.

In some countries, bancassurance is still largely prohibited, but it was recently legalized in countries such as the United States, when the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed after the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.