Word.ws English Dictionary

shadow banks

shadow banks is the plural of shadow bank.

Meaning of shadow bank

Noun

shadow bank (plural shadow banks)

  1. (derogatory) An entity that illegally performs banking functions.
    • Regulators have said there was an entire shadow bank within the official BCCI with separate books.1991 July 23, “A Slam Heard 'Round the World; Closing of BCCI's Doors Leaves...”, in Washington Post
  2. An entity not subject to banking regulation that performs banking functions.
    • The rise of unregulated “shadow banks” and the lack of restrictions on insurers and asset managers were pinpointed as concerns – as was the growth of global banks to a scale larger than 2008 and the fear that they are again “too big to fail”.2018 October 7, Shane Hickey, “Shadow banks, trade wars, Trump … clouds gather over the IMF’s paradise”, in The Observer

Questions about shadow banks

What is shadow banks the plural of?
Shadow banks is the plural of shadow bank.

Words near shadow banks in the dictionary

  1. shadow banker
  2. shadow bankers
  3. shadow banking
  4. shadow banking system
  5. shadow banking systems
  6. shadow banks
  7. shadow banned
  8. shadow banning
  9. shadow bans
  10. shadow beni
  11. shadow blister effect

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shadow banks (page history and authors); shadow bank (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “shadow banks.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shadow_banks. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.