Industry WIKI

In 2010, the United States implemented the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act; the law required financial firms around the world to report accounts held by US citizens to the Internal Revenue Service.

United Stock Exchange of India Limited, also known as the United Stock Exchange (USE), is an Indian government owned stock exchange. It is the 4th pan-India exchange launched for trading financial instruments in India. USE represents the commitment of 21 Indian public sector banks, private banks, international banks and corporate houses to build an institution of repute. Mr. Gaurav Arora

A universal bank is a type of bank which participates in many kinds of banking activities and is both a commercial bank and an investment bank as well as providing other financial services such as insurance. These are also called full-service financial firms, although there can also be full-service investment banks which provide wealth and asset management, trading, underwriting, researc

In finance, unsecured debt refers to any type of debt or general obligation that is not protected by a guarantor, or collateralized by a lien on specific assets of the borrower in the case of a bankruptcy or liquidation or failure to meet the terms for repayment. Unsecured debts are sometimes called signature debt or personal loans. These differ from secured debt such as a mortgage, whic

In cryptocurrencies, an unspent transaction output (UTXO, often capitalized as UTxO) is a distinctive element in a subset of digital currency models. A UTXO represents a certain amount of cryptocurrency that has been authorized by a sender and is available to be spent by a recipient. The utilization of UTXOs in transaction processes is a key feature of many cryptocurrencies, but it prima

The uptick rule is a trading restriction that states that short selling a stock is allowed only on an uptick. For the rule to be satisfied, the short must be either at a price above the last traded price of the security, or at the last traded price when the most recent movement between traded prices was upward (i.e. the security has traded below the last-traded price more recently than a

In computing, Urbit is a decentralized personal server platform based on functional programming in a peer-to-peer network.

The international currency code for the US dollar is USD. This article covers its definition, mechanisms, verification methods, and common misconceptions.

USD1 is a US dollar stablecoin associated with the World Liberty Financial brand. This article introduces its positioning, mechanism, verification checklist, and common misconceptions.

USDC is a US dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Circle. This article introduces its positioning, mechanism, usage checklist, and common misconceptions.

USDe is the synthetic dollar asset of the Ethena protocol. This article covers its positioning, mechanism, usage checklist, and common misconceptions.

USDS is the stablecoin of the Sky protocol and is closely related to the evolution of DAI. This article covers its positioning, mechanism, usage checklist, and common misconceptions.

USDT is a US dollar-denominated stablecoin issued by Tether, designed to maintain a close value relationship with the US dollar. This article introduces its positioning, mechanism, verification checklist, and common misconceptions.

In finance, valuation is the process of determining the value of a (potential) investment, asset, or security.

Valuation risk is the risk that an entity suffers a loss when trading an asset or a liability due to a difference between the accounting value and the price effectively obtained in the trade.

Value added is a term in economics for calculating the difference between market value of a product or service, and the sum value of its constituents. It is relatively expressed by the supply-demand curve for specific units of sale. Value added is distinguished from the accounting term added value which measures only the financial profits earned upon transformational processes for specif

Value at risk (VaR) is a measure of the risk of loss of investment/capital. It estimates how much a set of investments might lose (with a given probability), given normal market conditions, in a set time period such as a day. VaR is typically used by firms and regulators in the financial industry to gauge the amount of assets needed to cover possible losses.

Value averaging (VA), also known as dollar value averaging (DVA), is a technique for adding to an investment portfolio that is controversially claimed to provide a greater return than other methods such as dollar cost averaging. With the method, investors add to (or withdraw from) their portfolios in such a way that the portfolio balance reaches a predetermined monthly or quarterly targe

Value investing is an investment paradigm that involves buying securities that appear underpriced by some form of fundamental analysis. Modern value investing derives from the investment philosophy taught by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd at Columbia Business School starting in 1928 and subsequently developed in their 1934 text Security Analysis.

A variable interest entity (VIE) is a legal structure defined by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) for situations where control over a legal entity may be demonstrated through means other than voting rights. A public company with a financial interest in such entities may be subject to certain financial reporting requirements.

Varo Bank is an American neobank headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Launched in 2017, Varo was the first neobank to receive a national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The VEM (Acronym of Vale eletrônico Metropolitano, Electronic Metropolitan Ticket) is a Smart card system used in bus, train and metro of the metropolitan area of Recife, Brazil.

The 2009–2010 banking crisis in Venezuela occurred when the government took control of several banks following revelations that institutions owned by supporters of Hugo Chavez supporters were in financial trouble after engaging in questionable business practices. Some were seriously undercapitalized, others were apparently lending large sums of money to top executives, and at least one f

Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equit

Venture capital in Israel refers to the financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies based in Israel. The country's venture capital industry was born in the mid-1980s and has rapidly developed. Israel currently has more than 276 active venture capital funds, of which 71 are international VCs with Israeli offices. Israel's venture capital

Venture capital is a segment of the economy of Poland where private equity finances early-stage high-risk companies, with the potential for fast growth. As of March 2019, there is a total of 130 active VC firms in Poland, including local offices of international VC firms, and VC firms with mainly Polish management teams. Between 2009 and 2019, these entities have invested locally in over

Venture capital in the Czech Republic refers to activity by private equity investors who finance companies in early stages of development in exchange for an ownership stake. The market's origins date to the early 1990s, when foreign funds began operating in the country following the transition to a market economy after the Velvet Revolution. From the mid-2010s, investment volumes grew, d

A venture capital trust or VCT is a tax efficient UK closed-end collective investment scheme designed to provide venture capital for small expanding companies, and income (in the form of dividend distributions) and/or capital gains for investors. VCTs are a form of publicly traded private equity, comparable to investment trusts in the UK or business development companies in the United St

Verifi, Inc. is an American financial technology company that provides dispute management and chargeback prevention tools for card-not-present payments. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Verifi offers products including Order Insight, Rapid Dispute Resolution (RDR), and the Cardholder Dispute Resolution Network (CDRN) to help merchants, issuers, and acquirers

Vix pervenit (lit. 'It has hardly reached') is an encyclical, promulgated by Pope Benedict XIV on 1 November 1745, which condemned the practice of charging interest on loans as usury. Because the encyclical was addressed to the bishops of Italy, it is generally not considered ex cathedra. The Holy Office applied the encyclical to the whole of the Roman Catholic Church on 29 July 1836, du

Vix Technology (Vix) is an Australian company that designs, supplies and operates automated fare collection (AFC) systems, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), access, payment and passenger information display systems (PIDS) for the public transit industry.

Vocalink is a payment systems company headquartered in the United Kingdom, created in 2007 from the merger between Voca and LINK. It designs, builds and operates the UK payments infrastructure, which underpins the provision of the Bacs payment system and the UK ATM LINK switching platform covering 65,000 ATMs and the UK Faster Payments systems.

In finance, volatility (usually denoted by "σ") is the degree of variation of a trading price series over time, usually measured by the standard deviation of logarithmic returns.

In finance, volatility arbitrage (vol arb) is a term for financial arbitrage techniques directly dependent and based on volatility.

Volatility risk

In finance, a volatility swap is a forward contract on the future realised volatility of a given underlying asset. Volatility swaps allow investors to trade the volatility of an asset directly, much as they would trade a price index. Its payoff at expiration is equal to

The Volfefe Index was a stock market index of volatility in market sentiment for US Treasury bonds caused by tweets by President Donald Trump.

In capital markets, volume, or trading volume, is the amount (total number) of a security (or a given set of securities, or an entire market) that was traded during a given period of time. In the context of a single stock trading on a stock exchange, the volume is commonly reported as the number of shares that changed hands during a given day. The transactions are measured on stocks, bon

Volume risk, also known as quantity risk, is the risk of production or sales volumes materially and adversely deviating from their expected quantities. The term has context-specific applications.

Voting interest (or voting power) in business and accounting means the total number, or percent, of votes entitled to be cast on the issue at the time the determination of voting power is made, excluding a vote which is contingent upon the happening of a condition or event which has not occurred at the time.

VugaPay is a cross-platform payment service owned by Vuga Ltd, a Rwandan company. It allows businesses and users to transfer money across major payment systems, including credit card networks, mobile money and Bitcoin via an application programming interface, unstructured supplementary service data interface, a mobile phone app, or a web interface. It processed over 5 million transaction

A vulture fund is a hedge fund or private-equity fund that invests in debt considered to be very weak or in default, known as distressed debt. Investors in the fund profit by buying debt at a discounted price on a secondary market and then using numerous methods to sell the debt for more than the purchasing price. Debtors include companies, countries, and individuals.

Wagner's law, also known as the law of increasing state activity, is the observation that public expenditure increases as national income rises. It is named after the German economist Adolph Wagner (1835–1917), who first observed the effect in his own country and then for other countries.

The Wall Street Journal Dollar Index (WSJ Dollar Index) is an index (or measure) of the value of the U.S. dollar relative to 16 foreign currencies.

In financial transactions, a warrant is a written order by one person that instructs or authorises another person to pay a specified recipient a specific amount of money or supply goods at a specific date. A warrant may or may not be negotiable and may be a bearer instrument that authorises payment to the warrant holder on demand or after a specific date. Governments and businesses may p

Watered stock is an asset with an artificially-inflated value. The term most commonly refers to a form of securities fraud in which a company issues stock to someone before receiving at least the par value in payment.

The inequality of wealth (i.e., inequality in the distribution of assets) has substantially increased in the United States since the late 1980s. Wealth commonly includes the values of any homes, automobiles, personal valuables, businesses, savings, and investments, less any associated debts.

Wealth management (WM) or wealth management advisory (WMA) is an investment advisory service that provides financial management and wealth advisory services to a wide array of clients ranging from affluent to high-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individuals and families.

Wealthfront Corporation is an American financial services company based in Palo Alto, California, founded by Andy Rachleff and Dan Carroll in 2008. As of September 2026, Wealthfront reported approximately $100 billion assets under management for more than 1.5 million clients.

Wealthsimple Inc. is a Canadian online investment management service. The firm was founded in September 2014 by Michael Katchen, Brett Huneycutt, and Rudy Adler and is based in Toronto. As of October 22, 2025, the firm holds over C$100 billion in assets under administration. It is primarily owned by Power Corporation, which holds a 52.4% undiluted stake aggregated through three entities:

The weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is the rate that a company is expected to pay on average to all its security holders to finance its assets. The WACC is commonly referred to as the firm's cost of capital. Importantly, it is dictated by the external market and not by management. The WACC represents the minimum return that a company must earn on an existing asset base to satisfy

WePay is an online payment service provider based in the United States. It provides an integrated and customizable payment solution, through its APIs, to platform businesses such as crowdfunding sites, marketplaces and small business software companies. It also offers partners fraud and risk protection.

What Has Government Done to Our Money? is a 1963 book by Murray N. Rothbard that details the history of money, from early barter systems, to the gold standard, to present day systems of paper money.

The WIG20 is a capitalization-weighted stock market index of the twenty largest companies on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Established on April 16, 1994. WIG is an acronym for "Warszawski Indeks Giełdowy", which translates to Warsaw Stock Index in Polish. However, so that no sector would dominate the index, the rule was introduced that there can be a maximum of 5 companies per sector. In th

Willow Wealth Inc. (formerly Yieldstreet) is an American financial technology company headquartered in New York City that operates an online platform for alternative investments. The platform enables accredited investors and retail investors to access private market asset classes including real estate, private credit, private equity, art, and legal finance. As of 2025, the platform repor

WinCapita, previously WinClub and GiiClub, was a Finnish Internet-based Ponzi scheme that advertised itself as a private investment club engaged in currency trading. In reality, it was a bucket shop like many other foreign exchange fraud schemes. It operated mainly in Finland, with a smaller number of members also in Sweden. The operation collected about 100 million euros from more than

Window guidance (Japanese: 窓口指導) or informal guidance, is an informal policy instrument used to regulate the supply of credit in a specific industry or sector. Window guidance typically involves the use of benevolent compulsion in order to regulate the supply of credit as a way to achieve policy targets such as sustainability. Window guidance involves the use of monetary policy instrumen

Wire transfer, bank transfer, or credit transfer, is a method of electronic funds transfer from one person or entity to another. A wire transfer can be made from one bank account to another bank account, or through a transfer of cash at a cash office.

Wise, formerly known as TransferWise, is a British financial technology company focused on global money transfers and Business Finance. Headquartered in London, it was founded by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus in January 2011. As of 2023, it offers three main products: Wise Account, Wise Business, and Wise Platform.

The President's Working Group on Financial Markets, known colloquially as the Plunge Protection Team, or "(PPT)" was created by Executive Order 12631, signed on March 18, 1988, by United States President Ronald Reagan.

World, also known as World Network, is a humanity verification project and financial network. It was developed and launched as the cryptocurrency project Worldcoin. Among other organizations, contributors to the project include Tools for Humanity, a company founded in 2019 by Sam Altman, Max Novendstern, and Alex Blania. World's stated mission is to provide a reliable and anonymous way t

The World Business Angels Association (WBAA) was an international, not-for-profit organization whose mission was to stimulate the exchange of knowledge and best practices in the field of global angel capital financing for high-growth and innovative startups. It was closed around 2017.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. Established on 1 January 1995, pursuant to the 1994 Marrakesh Agreement, it succeeded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was created in 1948. As the world's largest international economic organization, the WTO has 166 members, representing over

Worldpay Group plc (formerly RBS WorldPay) was a payment processing company. It was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange until 16 January 2018 when it was acquired by Vantiv. The combined company then took the name Worldpay, Inc. Worldpay, Inc. was acquired by FIS in July 2019 for $43 billion. In 2024, private-equity firm GTCR acquired a majority 55% equity interest in Worldpay.

Xsolla is an American financial technology company that makes payment software for video games. It was founded in 2005 in Perm, Russia, by Aleksandr Agapitov. As of 2022, it had 500 employees. The company's core product is Pay Station, a suite of tools for integrating payment systems. It can be used to accept more than 1000+ payment types in more than 200 countries. Xsolla software was u

XTX Markets Limited is a British algorithmic trading company based in London. It was founded in January 2015 by Alexander Gerko, who is currently co-CEO alongside Hans Buehler. The company employs around 300 people globally (as of 2026) and uses state-of-the-art machine learning technology to produce price forecasts for over 50,000 financial instruments across equities, fixed income, cur

In mathematical finance, X-Value Adjustment (XVA, xVA) is an umbrella term referring to a number of different "valuation adjustments" that banks must make when assessing the value of derivative contracts that they have entered into. The purpose of these is twofold: primarily to hedge for possible losses due to other parties' failures to pay amounts due on the derivative contracts; but al

Yape (pronounced [ˈʝape]) is a digital wallet and mobile payment application developed by the Banco de Crédito del Perú (BCP) in 2016. As of 2025, it has over 20 million users. Its features include instant, commission-free peer-to-peer transfers, bill payments, and purchases using a smartphone via a phone number or QR code, without requiring a traditional bank account, enabling its use b

In finance, the yield on a security is a measure of the ex-ante return to a holder of the security. It is one component of return on an investment, the other component being the change in the market price of the security. It is a measure applied to fixed income securities, common stocks, preferred stocks, convertible stocks and bonds, annuities and real estate investments.

The yield to maturity (YTM), book yield or redemption yield of a fixed-interest security is an estimate of the total rate of return anticipated to be earned by an investor who buys it at a given market price, holds it to maturity, and receives all interest payments and the capital redemption on schedule.

YooKassa branded as ЮKassa (Previously Yandex.Checkout) (Russian: Яндекс.Касса), is a Russian E-commerce payment system operated by YooMoney, owned by Sberbank. It was launched in 2013.

York Capital Management (York Capital) is an American investment management company, founded by James Dinan and headquartered in New York City.

Yozma, Yozma Program, or Yozma Fund was a venture capital organization in Israel that initially started out as a government funded program in 1993 to help kick start venture capital, angel investing, and private equity in Israel's economy. $20 million of government subsidies went to the Yozma Fund, the other $80 million the government provided went to match other foreign and domestic fir

The Z-spread, ZSPRD, zero-volatility spread, or yield curve spread of a bond is the parallel shift or spread over the zero-coupon Treasury yield curve required for discounting a predetermined cash flow schedule to arrive at its present market price. The Z-spread is also widely used in the credit default swap (CDS) market as a measure of credit spread that is relatively insensitive to the

ZachXBT, also identified as Zachary Wolk is a pseudonymous American blockchain investigator and open-source intelligence (OSINT) researcher known for independent forensic investigations into cryptocurrency fraud, scams, and thefts. He has been active on X (formerly Twitter) since 2021, publishing detailed investigative threads that trace stolen funds, expose rug pulls, and identify perpe

Zelle () is an American digital payments network run by a private financial services company owned by Bank of America, Truist, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo. The Zelle service enables individuals to electronically transfer money from their bank account to another registered user's bank account (within the United States) using a mobile device or the web

In finance, a zero coupon swap (ZCS) is an interest rate derivative (IRD). In particular it is a linear IRD, that in its specification is very similar to the much more widely traded interest rate swap (IRS).

The zero lower bound (ZLB) or zero nominal lower bound (ZNLB) is a macroeconomic problem that occurs when the short-term nominal interest rate is at or near zero, causing a liquidity trap and limiting the central bank's capacity for inflation targeting.

Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a budgeting method that requires all expenses to be justified and approved in each new budget period. It was developed by Peter Pyhrr in the 1970s. This budgeting method analyzes an organization's needs and costs by starting from a "zero base" (meaning no funding allocation) at the beginning of every period. The intended outcome is to assess the efficient us

Zong was a mobile payment company that allowed users to make micropayments on the Internet if they have a postpaid mobile phone. The payments were charged to their mobile phone bills by the mobile operator. The company was acquired by eBay in 2011 and disappeared in 2015.

ZuluTrade is a Greek financial technology company that operates an online and mobile social and copy trading platform. The platform allows users to automatically copy the trades of other investors in the foreign exchange market. As of 2014 ZuluTrade had around one million users and an executed trading volume of over $800 billion.