National Bank

The term “national bank” can have two connotations. On a small scale, it’s a bank in the U.S. with a national scale. Think Citi or Bank of America or the like. A bank gets charted as a national bank through the U.S. government, becoming a Federal Reserve member bank.

On a larger scale (speaking from a historical/global perspective), the term denotes a country’s central bank. That is, it represents the body that controls the currency and manages monetary policy for a given nation.

In the U.S., that's the Federal Reserve. For Britain, it's the Bank of England. For the EU, it's the European Central Bank. For your monopoly games, it's your cousin Charlie; when he sneaks an extra $500 bill into his pile, he calls it "monetary policy."