 Investment banking, an investment bank is typically a private company that provides various finance-related and other services to individuals, corporations, and governments such as raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of securities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions M&A and provide ancillary services such as market-making, trading of derivatives and equity securities, and FICC services fixed-income instruments, currencies, and commodities. Unlike commercial banks and retail banks, investment banks do not take deposits. From the passage of Glass-Steagall out in 1933 until its repeal in 1999 by the Graham Leach-Bliley Act, the United States maintained a separation between investment banking and commercial banks. Other industrialized countries, including G7 countries, have historically not maintained such a separation as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 the Volcker Rule asserts some institutional separation of investment banking services from commercial banking. All investment banking activity is classed as either sell side or buy side. The sell side involves trading securities for cash or for other securities e.g. facilitating transactions, market-making or the promotion of securities e.g. underwriting, research, etc. The buy side involves the provision of advice to institutions that buy investment services. Private equity funds, mutual funds, life insurance companies, unit trusts, and hedge funds are the most common types of buy side entities. An investment bank can also be split into private and public functions with a Chinese Wall separating the two to prevent information from crossing. The private areas of the bank deal with private insider information that may not be publicly disclosed, while the public areas, such as stock analysis, deal with public information. An advisor who provides investment banking services in the United States must be a licensed broker-dealer and subject to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority FINRA regulation.