commercial bank

American

noun

a bank specializing in checking accounts and short-term loans.

commercial bank British

noun

a bank primarily engaged in making short-term loans from funds deposited in current accounts

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of commercial bank

First recorded in 1905–10

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

commercial bank

Notably, Affirm is moving to become an industrial loan company rather than a commercial bank.

From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026

The deal will make the Madrid-headquartered firm the tenth largest retail and commercial bank in the U.S. by assets, and the fifth largest by deposits in the Northeast.

From MarketWatch ● Feb. 4, 2026

It also continued to grow its coast-to-coast consumer and commercial bank, which today has $1.96 trillion in deposits, second only to JPMorgan Chase.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025

Farmer described the deal with Fifth Third as taking Comerica, a strong commercial bank, and “marrying that with a really great retail deposit base.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2025

If a commercial bank pays no interest on demand deposits there is no motive for the depositor to keep a balance larger than he needs as current purchasing power.

From Modern Economic Problems Economics Volume II by Frank Albert Fetter

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023