In my paper I want to analyze the state of health of the banking system,and to describe the 2008 financial crisis, an event that changed the history course for the Western countries' economies. The global financial crisis was a crisis that had the banks as its epicenter. The global financial system ended up in collapse due to the excessive use of complex and speculative instruments, defined as "derivatives" and the high volume of loans granted by banks even to those who would not be able to repay them in the future.