GE Capital was the financial-services arm of General Electric and for decades one of the world’s largest non-bank financial institutions. Founded in 1932 to help customers finance GE appliances and equipment, it expanded massively throughout the late 20th century into commercial lending, aircraft leasing, real estate finance, consumer credit, and insurance. At its peak in the mid-2000s, GE Capital generated more than half of GE’s total earnings and operated across more than 50 countries, effectively functioning like a global bank. Its size and complexity, however, became a liability during the 2008 financial crisis, when exposure to real estate and short-term funding markets forced GE to scale back and accept regulatory oversight as a systemically important financial institution. Through the 2010s, GE unwound most of GE Capital’s businesses—selling off lending units, real estate portfolios, and GE Money—and refocused on core industrial operations. By the early 2020s, GE Capital had been largely dismantled, marking the end of one of the most influential conglomerate-finance platforms in modern corporate history.