Industry WIKI

The National Bank of Panama (Spanish: Banco Nacional de Panamá, BNP) is one of two Panamanian government-owned banks. As of January 2009, it held deposits of about US$5 billion. The other government-owned bank is Caja de Ahorros de Panamá (Savings Bank of Panama), with about US$1 billion in total deposits.

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. They typically contain references to digital files such as artworks, photos, videos, and audio. Because NFTs are uniquely identifiable, they differ from cryptocurrencies (which are fungible, hence the name non-fungible token), and as a result they

OneCoin is a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme conducted by offshore companies OneCoin Ltd (based in Bulgaria and registered in UAE) and OneLife Network Ltd (registered in Belize), both founded by Ruja Ignatova in concert with Sebastian Greenwood. OneCoin is considered a Ponzi scheme due to its organisational structure of paying early investors using money obtained from newer ones. It was

In macroeconomics, an open market operation (OMO) is an activity by a central bank to exchange liquidity in its currency with a bank or a group of banks. The central bank can either transact government bonds and other financial assets in the open market or enter into a repurchase agreement or secured lending transaction with a commercial bank. The latter option, often preferred by centra

Paper wealth means financial assets or possessions as measured by their monetary value, as reflected in the price of assets – how much money one's assets could be sold for. Paper wealth is contrasted with real wealth, which refers to one's actual physical assets. For example, if one owns a house and its assessed value increases (relative to the general price level, i.e., assuming no infl

In American economics, penny stocks are common shares of small public companies that trade for less than $5 per share.

Peter Andreas Thiel ( ; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and conservative political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund, he was also the first outside investor in Facebook. As of October 2026, Forbes estimated Thiel's net worth at US$37.7 billion.

Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz include treatments of the modern fairy tale (written by L. Frank Baum and first published in 1900) as an allegory or metaphor for the political, economic, and social events of America in the 1890s. Scholars have examined four quite different versions of Oz: the novel of 1900, the Broadway play of 1902, the Hollywood film of 1939, an

In early August 2025, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif made claims that over half of the country's senior bureaucrats had purchased properties in Portugal and were arranging to obtain European (Portuguese) citizenship using illicit wealth. He alleged that these officials accumulated vast sums, "billions of rupees", through corrupt practices during their tenure, enabling them to r

Price stability occurs when average consumer prices for goods and services are constant over time, or when they are rising at a low and predictable rate. It is a goal of monetary and fiscal policy aiming to support sustainable rates of economic activity. Policy is set to maintain a very low rate of inflation or deflation. For example, the European Central Bank (ECB) describes price s

Proof of work (also written as proof-of-work, and abbreviated PoW) is a form of cryptographic proof in which one party (the prover) proves to others (the verifiers) that a certain amount of a specific computational effort has been expended. Verifiers can subsequently confirm this expenditure with minimal effort on their part. The concept was first proposed by Moni Naor and Cynthia Dwork

A protection racket is a racketeering scheme, usually perpetrated by a criminal organization, that coerces payments on a regular basis from an individual, group, or business in exchange for agreeing to not harm them (or for purportedly "protecting" them). The threat of harm may be indirectly communicated or implied, and it may include violence, robbery, ransacking, arson, vandalism, etc

Quick Response Code Indonesia Standard (abbreviated as QRIS, the abbreviation being a wordplay on keris, a traditional sword; Indonesian: Kode QR Standar Indonesia) is a QR code payment system developed by Bank Indonesia (BI) and the Indonesian Payment System Association (ASPI) aimed to integrate all non-cash payment methods in Indonesia. Launched in 2019, the system enables peer-to-peer

Qualifying Investor Alternative Investment Fund or QIAIF is a Central Bank of Ireland regulatory classification established in 2013 for Ireland's five tax-free legal structures for holding assets. The Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle or ICAV is the most popular of the five Irish QIAIF structures, it is the main tax-free structure for foreign investors holding Irish assets.

Quantitative tightening (QT) is a contractionary monetary policy tool applied by central banks to decrease the amount of liquidity or money supply in the economy. A central bank implements quantitative tightening by reducing the financial assets it holds on its balance sheet by selling them into the financial markets, which decreases asset prices and raises interest rates. QT is the re

The Raleigh Bicycle Company is a British bicycle brand based in Nottingham, England, and founded by Woodhead and Angois in 1885. Using Raleigh as their brand name, it is one of the oldest bicycle companies in the world. After being acquired by Frank Bowden in December 1888, it became The Raleigh Cycle Company, which was registered as a limited liability company in January 1889. By 1913,

A reserve currency is a foreign currency that is held by governments, central banks or other monetary authorities as part of their foreign exchange reserves. The reserve currency can be used in international transactions, international investments and all aspects of the global economy. It is often considered a hard currency or safe-haven currency.

Security market line (SML) is the representation of the capital asset pricing model. It displays the expected rate of return of an individual security as a function of systematic, non-diversifiable risk. The risk of an individual risky security reflects the volatility of the return from the security rather than the return of the market portfolio. The risk in these individual risky securi

The Shadow Open Market Committee (SOMC) is an independent group of economists, first organized in 1973 by Professors Karl Brunner, from the University of Rochester, and Allan Meltzer, from Carnegie Mellon University, to provide a monetarist alternative to the views on monetary policy and its inflation effects then prevailing at the Federal Reserve and within the economics profession.

Shark fin trading in Costa Rica, or shark finning, is an illegal practice in the country. It poses a serious threat to shark populations besides the organized crime involvement in the practice within Costa Rica. The trade in Costa Rica is vigorously controlled by the Taiwanese mafia because of the high value of shark fins in restaurants in the Pacific Rim countries such as Taiwan, Hong K

Shipbroking is a financial service, which forms part of the global shipping industry. Shipbrokers are specialist intermediaries/negotiators (i.e. brokers) between shipowners and charterers who use ships to transport cargo, or between buyers and sellers of vessels.

Silvergate Bank was a California bank founded in 1988. The company began providing services for cryptocurrency users in 2016, and conducted an IPO in 2019.

A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency that aims to maintain a stable value relative to a specified asset, a pool or basket of assets. The specified asset might refer to fiat currency, commodity, or other cryptocurrencies. Despite the name, stablecoins are not necessarily stable. Stablecoins rely on stabilization tools such as reserve assets or algorithms that match supply and demand

In economics, standard of deferred payment is a function of money. It is the function of being a widely accepted way to value a debt, thereby allowing goods and services to be acquired now and paid for in the future.

The Superintendent of Finances (French: Surintendant des finances) was the name of the minister in charge of finances in France from 1561 to 1661. The position was abolished in 1661 with the downfall of Nicolas Fouquet, and a new position was created, the Controller-General of Finances.

Supply chain finance (SCF), also known as supplier finance or reverse factoring, comprises a suite of financial solutions that aim to manage working capital and liquidity for businesses within a supply chain. These arrangements are typically initiated by a buyer to allow their suppliers to access funding for their accounts receivable at interest rates based on the buyer's credit rating,

Sustainalytics is a company that rates the sustainability of listed companies based on their environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance. The company was born of a merger between Toronto-based Jantzi Research, which was founded in 1992 by Sustainalytics' current CEO Michael Jantzi, and its European counterpart. Following its acquisition of GES International on Januar

In finance and economics, systematic risk (in economics often called aggregate risk or undiversifiable risk) is vulnerability to events which affect aggregate outcomes such as broad market returns, total economy-wide resource holdings, or aggregate income. In many contexts, events like earthquakes, epidemics and major weather catastrophes pose aggregate risks that affect not only the dis

TARGET2 was the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system for the Eurozone from its phased introduction in 2007-2008 until its replacement with T2 in March 2023. As such, it was one of the Eurosystem's TARGET Services, replacing the original TARGET (Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer System) RTGS introduced in 1999. Like the other TARGET Services, it was

Tether Limited is a financial technology company that issues the Tether stablecoin (USDT), the world’s largest stablecoin by market capitalization. Founded in 2014, Tether pioneered the concept of fiat-backed digital currencies pegged 1:1 to traditional currencies (initially the U.S. dollar). USDT has become a key source of liquidity in the cryptocurrency market, with over $170 billion i

Tornado Cash (also stylized as TornadoCash) is an open source, non-custodial, fully decentralized cryptocurrency tumbler that runs on Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible networks. It offers a service that mixes potentially identifiable or "tainted" cryptocurrency funds with others, so as to obscure the trail back to the fund's original source. This is a privacy tool used in EVM networks

Trading 212 is a European fintech brokerage group founded in Bulgaria in 2004 and headquartered in London, United Kingdom.

In finance, a trading strategy is a fixed plan that is designed to achieve a profitable return by going long or short in markets.

In international finance, the Triffin dilemma (sometimes the Triffin paradox) is the conflict of economic interests that arises between short-term domestic and long-term international objectives for countries whose currencies serve as global reserve currencies. This dilemma was identified in the 1960s by Belgian-American economist Robert Triffin. He noted that a country whose currency i

Uniform Symbology (also known as UMTF), in the context of European financial markets, refers to a common scheme to refer to securities ("symbols"), adopted by European markets in 2008. The original announcement reads as follows:

In the United States, the debt ceiling is a law limiting the total amount of money the federal government can borrow. Since 2025, the debt ceiling is $41.1 trillion after being raised by $5 trillion through the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA). The debt ceiling is expected to breach by 2027. The U.S. government has borrowed to finance its budget since 2002, running a structural budge

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.

Valentino S.p.A., also known as Maison Valentino, is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1960 by Valentino Garavani and part of the Valentino Fashion Group. The company has its registered office in Milan, while the creative direction and the Valentino Foundation is based in Rome, at Palazzo Gabrielli-Mignanelli. Jacob Venturini was the CEO of Valentino since 2020 and Alessandro Mi

Vote buying, also referred to as voter bribery, electoral clientelism and patronage politics, occurs when a political party or candidate distributes money or resources to a voter in an upcoming election with the expectation that the voter votes for the actor handing out monetary rewards. Vote buying can take various forms such as a monetary exchange, as well as an exchange for necessary

Vuguru is an American independent multi-platform studio founded by Michael Eisner's The Tornante Company in March 2006. The company has produced content including the web series Prom Queen, The Booth at the End, Little Women Big Cars, The All-for-Nots, and Back on Topps. The company has signed content deals with AOL, HDNet, Yahoo!, Hulu, YouTube, Stan Lee's POW! Entertainment, and Freman

Willem "Wim" Drees Jr. (24 December 1922 – 5 September 1998) was a Dutch politician of the Democratic Socialists '70 (DS'70) party and economist.

Wise Guys is a 1986 American black comedy crime film directed by Brian De Palma and produced by Aaron Russo from a screenplay written by George Gallo and Norman Steinberg. It stars Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo as Harry Valentini and Moe Dickstein, two small-time mobsters from Newark, New Jersey, and features Harvey Keitel, Ray Sharkey, Lou Albano, Dan Hedaya and Frank Vincent.

Zondacrypto (formerly BitBay) was a European cryptocurrency exchange. Originally founded in Poland in 2014 by Sylwester Suszek, it grew to become one of the largest digital asset trading platforms in Central and Eastern Europe. Suszek disappeared in March 2022, and the site went offline in April 2026, leaving client assets stranded.