Definitions for "Money Markets"
Refers to financial investments that are generally under one year in duration and generally only open to banks and other financial institutions.
Financial markets for debt securities that pay off in the short term (usually less than one year).
Money markets are wholesale cash markets through which banks, corporates and government bodies fund short-term deficits and invest short-term surpluses - so-called, liquidity management. A wholesale market is a market involving professional counterparties (banks, large corporates and government bodies) and large deal sizes. The borrowing and lending in money markets is high volume, low risk and short-term. Short-term is generally understood as ‘less than one year’, although, in fact, most money market activity is concentrated in terms to maturity between overnight and one-week. This is in contrast with capital markets, where borrowing and lending is for periods of ‘more than one year’; and, indeed, it is this distinction between maturities that is often used to distinguish between money markets and capital markets.