WALL STREET

WALL STREET

WALL STREET

Like the dollar bills on which its business is based, Wall Street has two
faces. On one side, it is a place – a street in lower Manhattan. On the
other, the term is shorthand for an industry – the US wholesale financial-
services industry. Since Wall Street, the place, is the hub of this
industry, much of the time the two meanings overlap. But lower Manhattan
is by no means the totality of the US wholesale financial-services
industry, and so sometimes the term embraces other locations and institutions.
The US financial-services industry has two distinct parts: Main Street
financial services and Money-centre financial services. Main Street
financial services are retail services, that is, they meet the needs of individuals
and small businesses for cheque and savings accounts, loans
and mortgages, investment and insurance. Money centre activities comprise
a range of wholesale financial activities, meaning that they serve
the requirements of corporations, the government and other public
bodies (such as states and municipalities), public agencies and the financial-
services industry itself.

Richard Roberts