Authors: Dr. Amit Saha, Dr. Ankita Mulasi, and Dr. Mohamed Ali Kuniparambil

ISBN: 978-81-69857-24-6

DOI: https://doi.org/10.59646/779

Date of Publication: July 28, 2026

Cite this book: Amit S, Ankita M, and Mohamed AK, (2026), Financial Institutions and Markets, San International Scientific Publications, ISBN: 978-81-69857-24-6, DOI: https://doi.org/10.59646/779

Preface

This book offers an undergraduate introduction to the structure, regulation, and functioning of the Indian financial system. It is organised into seven parts, moving from the foundational concepts of financial intermediation and security analysis, through the regulatory architecture and institutions that make up the Indian financial system, to the markets — money, debt, equity, and derivatives — in which financial instruments are issued and traded, and finally to the global linkages and interest rate framework that connect the Indian financial system to the wider world:

Part 1 — Foundations of the Financial System

Part 2 — Regulation of Financial Markets

Part 3 — Banking Institutions

Part 4 — Non-Banking Financial Institutions

Part 5 — Financial Markets

Part 6 — Global Linkages

Part 7 — Interest Rates

Each of the book’s twenty-one chapters follows a consistent structure intended to support classroom teaching and self-study alike: Learning Objectives at the start of each chapter set out what the student should be able to do upon completing it; the main body of the text combines conceptual explanation with solved numerical illustrations wherever a quantitative technique is introduced; Case Studies, drawn from real, well-documented episodes in the history of Indian finance, connect the book’s conceptual material to concrete institutional experience; diagrams and charts are provided throughout to support visual understanding of structures, processes, and relationships that are more easily grasped graphically than in prose alone; and each chapter closes with a Chapter Summary, a list of Key Terms, Review Questions, and a short set of Multiple Choice Questions with an answer key, suitable for quick self-assessment or classroom quizzes.

Wherever this book cites specific figures — interest rates, exchange rates, market indices, institutional data — these reflect the prevailing position at the time of writing (mid-2026) and are provided for illustrative purposes; students should treat such figures as indicative of orders of magnitude and general relationships rather than as figures to be memorised as permanently fixed facts, since financial markets and institutions are, by their nature, continually evolving.

The book assumes no prior background in finance and is designed to be accessible to a first-year undergraduate student while still providing the analytical depth expected of a university-level course in financial markets and institutions.

 How to Use This Book

Each Part opens with a short introduction outlining how its chapters connect to one another and to the rest of the book. Cross-references such as “as discussed in Chapter 6” are used throughout to help students see how concepts introduced in one chapter are applied or extended in later ones — the Indian financial system is best understood not as a set of isolated topics, but as a connected whole, and these cross-references are intended to make those connections explicit. Boxed material — both Case Studies and shorter conceptual boxes — can be read alongside the main text or treated as optional enrichment, depending on the pace and depth required by a particular course.