A system that offers facilities for the deposit and withdrawal of data to a community of users on a particular topic (e.g. biological species, trade statistics, commodity prices). While it need not be an open public facility, the usual implication is that the user community is widespread. Access to a databank may be, for instance, via a videotex facility, or via any other form of network, or even via the postal service. The data itself may be organized as a database or as one or more files.