: Commercial banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, and stock exchanges.

: They must have robust systems to ensure all parties follow applicable laws and standards, which protects investors from legal or reputational damage.

: Intermediaries manage and diversify risks for their clients, such as a mutual fund spreading an investor's capital across various stocks to reduce the impact of a single failure.

: By providing economies of scale and specialized expertise, they make processes like lending or product distribution more efficient and less expensive than direct bilateral deals.