Mortgage Financial services is a term used to refer to the services provided by the finance industry. Mortgage Financial services is also the term used to describe organizations that deal with the management of money. Banks, investment banks, insurance companies, credit card companies, consumer finance companies, government sponsored enterprises, and stock brokerages, are examples of the types of firms comprising the industry, which provides a variety of money and investment related services. In the other style, a bank would simply create its own brokerage division or insurance division and attempt to sell those products to its own existing customers, with incentives for combining all things with one company. This is the style of Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo. However, the word mortgage alone, in everyday usage, is most often used to mean mortgage loan.

A home buyer or builder can obtain financing (a loan) either to purchase or secure against the property from a financial institution, such as a bank, either directly or indirectly through intermediaries. Features of mortgage loans such as the size of the loan, maturity of the loan, interest rate, method of paying off the loan, and other characteristics can vary considerably.