How Does A Special Memorandum Account Work
Here is another explanation of an SMA.  SMA refers to the Special Memorandum Account which represents neither equity nor cash but rather a line of credit created when the market value of securities in a Reg. T margin account increase in value.  For example, assume the market value of securities purchased at a cost of $10,000 on margin (at 50%) increase in value to $12,000.  This $2,000 increase in market value would create SMA of $1,000, which provides the account holder the ability to either: 1) buy additional securities valued at $2,000 (assuming a 50% margin rate) without depositing up additional funds; or 2) withdraw $2,000 in cash, which may be financed by increasing the debit balance if the account holds no cash.   It should be noted that while an increase in market value over original cost creates SMA, a subsequent decline in market value has no effect on SMA.  SMA will only decline if used to purchase securities or withdraw cash and the only restriction with respect to its use is that the additional purchases or withdrawals do not bring the account below the maintenance margin requirement. SMA will also increase on a dollar for dollar basis in the event of cash deposits or dividends. More details at http://ibkb.interactivebrokers.com/article/66 The Margin Account holds the funds that are MUST for any margin trades. Any funds excess of the MUST for margin trades are kept in the SMA account. These funds can be used for further Margin trades in new securities [funds get transfered into the Margin Account]. They cannot be used to met the Shortfall due to margin calls on existing trades. New funds need to be arranged. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_memorandum_account
"What exactly would the financial institution need to see to make them   comfortable with these regulations The LLC Operating Agreement. The OA should specify the member's allocation of equity, assets, income and loss, and of course - managerial powers and signature authorities. In your case - it should say that the LLC is single-member entity and the single member has all the managerial powers and authorities - what is called ""member-managed"". Every LLC is required to have an operating agreement, although you don't necessarily have to file it with the State or record it. If you don't have your own OA, default rules will apply, depending on your State law. However, the bank will probably not take you as a customer without an explicit OA." "I'm guessing since I don't know the term, but it sounds like you're asking about the technique whereby a loan is used to gather multiple years' gift allowance into a single up-front transfer. For the subsequent N years, the giver pays the installments on the loan for the recipient, at a yearly amount small enough to avoid triggering Gift Tax. You still have to pay income tax on the interest received (even though you're giving them the money to pay you), and you must charge a certain minimum interest (or more accurately, if you charge less than that they tax you as if the loan was earning that minimum). Historically this was used by relatively wealthy folks, since the cost of lawyers and filing the paperwork and bookkeeping was high enough that most folks never found out this workaround existed, and few were moving enough money to make those costs worthwhile. But between the ""Great Recession"" and the internet, this has become much more widely known, and there are services which will draw up standard paperwork, have a lawyer sanity-check it for your local laws, file the official mortgage lien (not actually needed unless you want the recipient to also be able to write off the interest on their taxes), and provide a payments-processing service if you do expect part or all of the loan to be paid by the recipient. Or whatever subset of those services you need.  I've done this. In my case it cost me a bit under $1000 to set up the paperwork so I could loan a friend a sizable chunk of cash and have it clearly on record as a loan, not a gift. The amount in question was large enough, and the interpersonal issues tricky enough, that this was a good deal for us. Obviously, run the numbers. Websearching ""family loan""  will find much more detail about how this works and what it can and can't do, along with services specializing in these transactions. NOTE: If you are actually selling something, such as your share of a house, this dance may or may not make sense. Again, run the numbers, and if in doubt get expert advice rather than trusting strangers on the web. (Go not to the Internet for legal advice, for it shall say both mu and ni.)" You are asking about what happens when an ETF/mutual fund company goes bankrupt. If you were asking about a bank account you would be asking about FDIC coverage.  Investment funds are different, the closest thing to FDIC protection is provided by  Securities Investors Protection Corporation (SIPC) SIPC was created under the Securities Investor Protection Act as a   non-profit membership corporation. SIPC oversees the liquidation of   member broker-dealers that close when the broker-dealer is bankrupt or   in financial trouble, and customer assets are missing. In a   liquidation under the Securities Investor Protection Act, SIPC and the   court-appointed Trustee work to return customers’ securities and cash   as quickly as possible. Within limits, SIPC expedites the return of   missing customer property by protecting each customer up to $500,000   for securities and cash (including a $250,000 limit for cash only). SIPC is an important part of the overall system of investor protection   in the United States. While a number of federal and state securities   agencies and self-regulatory organizations deal with cases of   investment fraud, SIPC's focus is both different and narrow: restoring   customer cash and securities left in the hands of bankrupt or   otherwise financially troubled brokerage firms. SIPC was not chartered by Congress to combat fraud. Although created   under a federal law, SIPC is not an agency or establishment of the   United States Government, and it has no authority to investigate or   regulate its member broker-dealers. It is important to understand that   SIPC is not the securities world equivalent of the Federal Deposit   Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insures depositors of insured   banks. The victim never actually receives the money, so that is not an option. The scammer generates the transaction using a fraudulent check. Once the check is found to be fraudulent the chain of involved banks claw the money back (which is the bank's money, not the scammer's). So, what happens is the victim sees a deposit in their account, but it is not real, it is a conditional deposit by the bank made on the assumption that the payment is good (which it is not). When the victim endorses a check, they are guaranteeing to the bank that they consider the check good and vouching for the check. That is why the bank credits the victim's account, because the victim has vouched for the check. When the check later turns out to be fraudulent, the victim owes the bank money. In theory, people who endorse a fraudulent check could be criminally prosecuted, but that does not happen normally. For an individual its not automatic. One needs to ask the Bank, return the check.   For Corporate Customer depending on how big the relationship is, many a times this is given as a service and there is an automatic return I believe different banks have slightly different experiences.  My wife and I have both joint and individual accounts. When I sign in, I see Joint, Mortgage and Joe. When She logs in, she sees Joint, Mortgage, and Jane. It happens that the Mortgage and Joint accounts have her Social Security number attached. Aside from that, I don't feel like I am an afterthought. In a nutshell, as long as they (Sparkasse) choose to. I work with banks where it happens the moment I submit the transaction (so the next screen already shows the new totals), and I work with banks that make it take 3 days. In the past, Sparkasse and Raifeissenkassen were especially famous to take a looong time ('Wir nehmen mehr als Geld und Zinsen...' - they supposedly work with the money inbetween, as it is gone from the source account but not arrived in the target account yet); that might have changed (or not). Probably Sparkasse has a statement in their fineprint on how long they make it take. I would expect one business day in today's environment, but I didn't look it up. You still owe the money because there is a high probability that some other organization bough the account and assets of the failed creditor.  That means they will have bought your debt.  I have to assume there is language in your note that explains that they might sell your debt. But what should one do if they don't know who bought the entity?  You can't pay a non-existent entity, but if you don't have an address, how can you pay the new owner of the debt? First step, is to assume there will be a new owner.  A government, a company, an individual; somebody will buy that debt.  Read the news and see if you can't figure out what other entity owns your note.  You might have to contact them to enquire about where to send payment.  Keep records of any such contact. If you put in an honest effort, but just cannot figure out who owns your note, I'd suggest continuing to make regular on-time payments.  But put your payments into a new bank account that you open just for this purpose.  So when the new owner of the debt does come calling, you'll have reasonable proof you were attempting to pay.  You simply settle up from the special account.  Any reasonable company will just take the money, and if anybody gets unreasonable and you have to appear in court, you have a paper trail indicating your attempts to honour the debt. You'd have to consult a lawyer if nobody comes asking for the money.  There are probably statutes of limitation, but I wouldn't count on that ever happening. "What you are describing is a Chart of Accounts.  It's a structure used by accountants to categorise accounts into sub-categories below the standard Asset/Liability/Income/Expense structure. The actual categories used will vary widely between different people and different companies.  Every person and company is different, whilst you may be happy to have a single expense account called ""Lunch"", I may want lots of expense accounts to distinguish between all the different restaurants I eat at regularly.  Companies will often change their chart of accounts over time as they decide they want to capture more (or less) detail on where a particular type of Expense is really being spent. All of this makes any attempt to create a standard (in the strict sense) rather futile.  I have worked at a few places where discussions about how to structure the chart of accounts and what referencing scheme to use can be surprisingly heated!  You'll have to come up with your own system, but I can provide a few common recommendations: If you're looking for some simple examples to get started with, most personal finance software (e.g. GnuCash) will offer to create an example chart of accounts when you first start a session." "Oftentimes, the lender (the owner of the security) is not explicitly involved in the lending transaction. Let's say the broker is holding a long-term position of 1MM shares from Client A. It is common for Client A's agreement with Broker A to include a clause that allows the broker to lend out the 1MM shares for its own profit (""rehypothecation""). Client A may be compensated for this in some form (e.g. baked into their financing rates), but they do not receive any compensation that is directly tied to lending activities. You also have securities lending agents that lend securities for an explicit fee. For example, the borrower's broker may not have sufficient inventory, in which case they would need to find a third-party lending agent. This happens both on-demand as well as for a fixed-terms (typically a large basket of securities). SLB (securities lending and borrowing) is a business in its own right.  I'm not sure I follow your follow-up question but oftentimes there is no restriction that prevents the broker from lending out shares ""for a very short time"". Unless there is a transaction-based fee though, the number of times you lend shares does not affect ""pocketing the interest"" since interest accrues as a function of time." Yes a minor can have a checking account, or a savings account. They can even get a debit card. The money in that bank account belongs to the minor. The account can be established as soon as the are assigned their social security number. If they are a newborn the account is generally set up as a joint account with a parent to facilitate transferring money into the account. For us the money was birthday gifts from relatives.  The IRS allows minors to receive small amounts of interest, or other unearned income, tax free. In 2015 that is up to $1,050, if they have no earned income. When bank rates were higher some parent's wanted to put all their saving under their child's name, of course in the eyes of the law the money belonged to the child and was only to be spent for items that benefited the child. Credit cards are another matter because the CARD act in 2009 required lenders to only give credit to those under 21 who had proof of sufficient income, unless there was a co-signer. You do have to be careful when talking about owning a house as minor. They generally can't sign a contract. You could gift the house to the minor, but if it was time to sell it the courts would insist on appointing a legal guardian to represent the interest of the child. That could add significant time to the transaction. "I'm not sure I understand your question, but I'll try to answer what I think you're asking. I think you're asking this: ""A US bank receives a wire transfer from a Chinese bank. How does the   US bank ensure there's any money in fact arriving before crediting the   destination account?"" Well, the way wire transfers work is that the US bank would debit the senders' account with that US bank. So the US bank in fact transfers the money between two internal accounts: debit to the Chinese bank's account with that US bank and credit the destination customer account. If the Chinese bank doesn't have an account with the destination US bank - a third party intermediary is used that both banks have accounts with. Such third party will charge an additional fee (hence sometimes the wire transfer fees are slightly higher than you initially know when sending the money, the third party would debit from the transfer amount). ""Regular"" IBAN/ACH transfers work through regulatory channels that ensure integrity and essentially use a regulatory bank as that third party. But because they're done in batches and not on-line, they're much cheaper, and the accounting is for the whole batch and not each transfer separately. But batch processing means it will take a day or two of processing, while wire transfer takes hours at most." My wife and I have two Schwab brokerage accounts, one for retirement and one for non-retirement investments.  The latter also has a checking/savings account which we use as our main account.  Schwab is very happy with us, as we are cheapskates and save a lot of money.  The checking account, which seems to act like any ordinary checking account, gives us all the things listed above.  They pay the ATM fees, which is not a lot of money, but seems like a nice thing to me.  We can also do cash deposits and we can go to any Schwab branch to talk to someone face to face.  We've only had to do the latter once in 10 or so years, and the former maybe once or twice. Do you have signature authority or interest in the account? Then yes. Interest in the account means that you wire $25K to your dad, but the money still belongs to you (I.e.: if you ask for it your dad will give it back to you). "I'd start with a Google search for ""best backtesting tools."" Does your online brokerage offer anything? You already understand that the data is the important part.  The good stuff isn't free. But yeah, if you have some money to spend you can get more than enough data to completely overwhelm you. :)"