Backwardation occurs when the price of futures with longer maturities are less than prices of futures with shorter maturities; it is the opposite of contango.

A bank takes deposits, makes loans, arranges payments, holds a banking license and is subject to regulatory supervision by a banking regulator.

A bank panic occurs when a large number of depositors at multiple different banks simultaneously demand the return of their deposits.

A bank run occurs when a large number of depositors at one bank simultaneously demand the return of their deposits.

The banking book of a bank is the portfolio of assets, primarily loans, a bank expects to hold until maturity when the loan is repaid fully; typically refers to the loans the bank underwrites.

A banking license, issued by a banking regulator or supervisor, allows a bank to engage in banking activities under the condition that the bank agrees to be supervised by regulatory or supervisory authorities.

The Basel Accords (Basel I Accord, the Market Risk Amendment and the Basel II Accord) are the cornerstones of international risk-based banking regulation, the results of a collaborative attempt by banking regulators from major developed countries to create a globally valid and widely applicable framework for banks and bank risk management.

The Basel Accords (Basel I Accord, the Market Risk Amendment and the Basel II Accord) are the cornerstones of international risk-based banking regulation, the results of a collaborative attempt by banking regulators from major developed countries to create a globally valid and widely applicable framework for banks and bank risk management.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is a forum for regulatory cooperation between its member countries on banking supervision-related matters, was established by the central bank governors, and consists of senior representatives of bank supervisory authorities and central banks from major economies.

The Basic Indicator Approach is an approach to calculate operational risk capital under the Basel II Accord, and uses the bank's total gross income as a risk indicator for the bank's operational risk exposure and sets the required level of operational risk capital as 15% of the bank's annual positive gross income averaged over the previous three years.

A basis point is one-hundredth of one percent, or 0.0001.

Basis risk is the degree of imperfect change in the relationship between the price used to value a position and the price of the instrument used to hedge the position.

Beta describes the return sensitivity of an individual stock or a portfolio of stocks to that of the market.

The beta factor is the fixed percentage of average positive annual gross income (over three years) of the eight different business lines a bank may have and is used to calculate its operational risk capital.

The bid-ask spread is the difference between the buy price or rate (bid) and sell price or rate (ask) of an financial instrument.

The Black-Scholes model is a pricing approach, initially derived by Fisher Black and Myron Scholes, used to value various types of contingent and derivative securities, such as options.

The board of directors has the ultimate responsibility for the management and performance of a company, is responsible for the bank's governance, and is elected by the shareholders.

A bond is a legally binding contract through which the borrower (also referred to as the issuer of the bond) borrows the principal, an amount specified in the bond, from an investor and in exchange pays a specified amount of interest, usually at regular intervals, and at maturity repays the principal.

A borrower receives money by borrowing money with the promise to repay the amount borrowed, or principal, and to pay compensation for borrowing the funds, or interest, to the lender.

Bucketing is the process of grouping similar types of exposures by type, size, kind, quality or time period.

Business continuity planning involves the task of identifying, developing, acquiring, documenting, and testing procedures and resources that will ensure continuity of a firm's key operations in the event of an accident, disaster, emergency, and/or threat.

Business disruption and System failure under the Basel II Accord includes operational risk events such as utility disruptions, software failures, hardware failure.

Business risk is the potential loss due to a weakening in competitive position.