While the classification can vary, financial institutions are typically grouped into three broad categories—Depository, Contractual, and Investment—which yield at least seven major functional types that are critical to the economy. In a regulatory and systemic context, the Central Bank (like the Federal Reserve in the U.S.) is also a major financial institution, but it functions primarily to oversee and regulate the other institutions and manage a country’s monetary policy, rather than Outsourced Accounting Services Knoxville consumers directly.