As a relatively new member of the business community, you decide it would be advantageous to join the local lunch club to network with businesspeople. Upon learning that you are a financial analyst, club members soon enlist you to give a lunch speech. During the question and answer session afterward, a member of the audience asks, “I keep reading in the newspaper about the need to regulate ‘financial intermediaries,’

but really don’t understand exactly what they are. Can you tell me?” How do you answer?