financial institutions, depository institutions, non-depository institutions, functions of institutions, brokerage function, monitoring costs, liquidity provision, investment research, investment recommendations, FANG, economies of scale, discount broker, asset transformation, asset transformers, maturity transformation, denomination transformation, risk transformation, information cost, information asymmetry, imperfect information, agency problem, moral hazard, risk diversification, credit risk diversification, loan diversification, credit allocation, intergenerational wealth transfer, old-age dissaving, payment services, denomination transformation, denomination intermediation.