depository financial institution whose primary function is promoting personal savings (thrift) and home ownership through mortgage lending. Thrift institutions hold most of their assets in mortgages and collect most of their deposits from consumers. savings and loan associations savings banks, and credit unionsare all considered thrift institutions. Thrift institutions, at one time restricted to mortgage lending, have gained parity with commercialbanks over the last 20 years and many thrifts offer the same range of nonmortgage credit services-credit cards, auto loans, home equity loans, and business loans-available from commercial banks.
generic name for savings banks and savings and loan associations.
organization formed primarily as a depository for consumer savings, the most common varieties of which are the savings bank. Traditionally, savings institutions have loaned most of their deposit funds in the residential mortgage market. Deregulation in the early 1980s expanded their range of depository services and allowed them to make commercial and consumer loans. Deregulation led to widespread abuse by savings and loans that used insured deposits to engage in speculative real estate lending. This resulted in the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), established in 1989 by the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), popularly known as the "bailout bill." credit union are sometimes included in the thrift institution category, since their principal source of deposits is also personal savings, though they have traditionally made small consumer loans, not mortgage loans.
