Underwriting agreement

Underwriting refers to the process that a large financial service provider (bank, insurer, investment house) uses to assess the process of providing access to their product like providing equity capital, insurance or credit to a customer. The name derives from the Lloyd's of London insurance market in London, United Kingdom. Financial bankers, who would accept some of the risk on a given venture (historically a sea voyage with associated risks of shipwreck) in exchange for a premium, would literally write their names under the risk information which was written on a Lloyd's slip created for this purpose.
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The agreement between a corporation issuing new publicly offered securities and the managing underwriter as agent for the underwriting group. Compare to agreement among underwriters.