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Digital assets and currencies

Understand assets, networks and trading mechanics with sources you can check.

Banking

Banking in Egypt

Banking in Egypt is regulated by the Central Bank of Egypt. Egypt’s banking sector has undergone major reforms since the 1990s, resulting in a liberalized and modernized system aligned with international standards. Financial inclusion has expanded, with 74.8% of Egyptians aged 15 and above using financial accounts, reaching 52 million users by 2024. Usage spans banks, Egypt Post, mobile

Banking

Banking in India

Modern banking in India began in the mid-18th century. Among the first banks were the Bank of Hindustan, which was established in 1770 and liquidated in 1829–32; and the General Bank of India, established in 1786 but failed in 1791.

Banking

Banking in Kyrgyzstan

In mid-1995, the banking system in Kyrgyzstan continued to be dominated by the central savings bank (the National Bank of Kyrgyzstan, created in 1991) and by the three major commercial banks that succeeded the sectoral banks of the Soviet era and remained under state control. Those banks, the Agricultural and Industrial Bank (Agroprombank), the Industrial and Construction Bank (Promstroy

Banking

Banking in Nicaragua

Banking in Nicaragua refers to its financial system, which includes private and state-owned banks, microfinance institutions, financial cooperatives, and insurance providers. All institutions are regulated by the Superintendency of Banks and Other Financial Institutions (SIBOIF), which makes sure there compliance with domestic laws and international standards. The Nicaraguan banking sect

Banking

Banking in Sudan

Banking in Sudan covers the history, development and structure of banking in the Sudan. From the inheritance of the banking system from the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to the establishment of the Sudan central bank in 1959 and development of Islamic banking in the mid 1970s.

Banking

Banking Regulation Act, 1949

The Banking Regulation Act, 1949 is a law in India that regulates all banking companies in India. Passed as the Banking Companies Act 1949, it came into force on 16 March 1949 and changed to Banking Regulation Act 1949 from 1 March 1966. It is applicable in Jammu and Kashmir from 1956. Initially, the law was applicable only to banking companies. But, in 1965 it was amended to make it ap

Banking

Banking software

Banking software refers to computer systems used by financial institutions to manage and deliver banking services. These systems support functions such as account management, transaction processing, record keeping, and customer interactions across various channels. Banking software may include core baking systems as well as applications for online, mobile, and automated services. Its

Finance

Banks Board Bureau

Banks Board Bureau (BBB) (now replaced by Financial Services Institution Bureau since 2022) was an autonomous body of the Government of India tasked to search and select appropriate personages for the Board of Public Sector Banks, Public Sector Financial Institutions, and Public Sector Insurance Companies and recommend measures to improve Corporate Governance in these Institutions. In 20

Finance

Banktivity

Banktivity (formerly known as iBank) is a personal finance management suite designed for macOS and iOS platforms by IGG Software, first released in 2003 as Mac desktop software.

Banking

Banq

"Banq" and "banc" are alternative spellings used in company names to evade legal restrictions on the use of the word 'bank' while maintaining a similar pronunciation. This practice is common in the financial services industry, particularly in the United States.

Trading basics

Barclays Bank, Enfield

Barclays Bank, at 20 The Town, Enfield, formerly the London and Provincial Bank, is a Grade II listed building in the London Borough of Enfield. It was designed by William Gillbee Scott in a Flemish Renaissance style and completed in 1897. London and Provincial were taken over by Barclays Bank in 1918.

Fiat currencies

Barry Eichengreen

Barry Julian Eichengreen (born 1952) is an American economist and economic historian who is the George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1987. Eichengreen is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy R

Banking

Basel Committee on Banking Supervision

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS, often shortened as Basel Committee) is a body that brings together bank supervisory authorities to set common prudential standards and policy. It relies on a permanent secretariat hosted by the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland.

Trading basics

Basis point

A basis point (often abbreviated as bp, often pronounced as "bip" or "beep") is one hundredth of 1 percentage point. Changes of interest rates are often stated in basis points. For example, if an existing interest rate of 10 percent is increased by 1 basis point, the new interest rate would be 10.01 percent.

Trading basics

Behavioral economics

Behavioral economics is the study of the psychological (e.g. cognitive, behavioral, affective, social) factors involved in the decisions of individuals or institutions, and how these decisions deviate from those implied by traditional economic theory.

Finance

Beta (finance)

In finance, the beta (β or market beta or beta coefficient) is a statistic that measures the expected increase or decrease of an individual stock price in proportion to movements of the stock market as a whole. Beta can be used to indicate the contribution of an individual asset to the market risk of a portfolio when it is added in small quantity. It refers to an asset's non-diversifiabl

Trading basics

Bid–ask spread

The bid–ask spread (also bid–offer or bid/ask and buy/sell in the case of a market maker) is the difference between the prices quoted (either by a single market maker or in a limit order book) for an immediate sale (ask) and an immediate purchase (bid) for stocks, futures contracts, options, or currency pairs in some auction scenario. The size of the bid–ask spread in a security is one m

Trading basics

Bill.com

BILL Holdings, Inc. is an American company based in San Jose, California, that provides automated, cloud-based software for financial operations for small businesses in the United States. A white-labeled, end-to-end payments automation platform, Bill.com Connect is offered to financial institutions as part of their single sign-on online business banking ecosystem.

Payments & settlement

Bills of credit

Bills of credit are documents similar to banknotes issued by a government that represent a government's indebtedness to the holder. They are typically designed to circulate as currency or currency substitutes. Bills of credit are mentioned in Article One, Section 10, Clause One (also known as the Contract Clause) of the United States Constitution, where their issuance by state governme

Assets

Bitchcoin

Bitchcoin is a non-fungible token (NFT) on the Ethereum blockchain. The project was launched in early 2015 as a fork of Bitcoin, several months before the launch of Ethereum. Bitchcoin was originally backed by the artist Sarah Meyohas' photography at a fixed rate of one token to 25 square-inches of one of the artist's photographs. This was one of the first instances of a physical work of

Trading basics

Bitcoin buried in Newport landfill

In 2013, Welsh computer engineer James Howells mistakenly disposed of a laptop hard drive containing the private key for 8,000 Bitcoin in the Docksway landfill in Newport, Wales. Howells subsequently assembled a team of specialists and secured funding to excavate the site, but Newport City Council refused permission, citing galvanic corrosion of the device and health concerns of city re

Trading basics

Bitconnect

Bitconnect (stylized bitconnect and also spelled BitConnect, ticker code BCC) was an open-source cryptocurrency from 2016 to 2018 that was connected with a high-yield investment program, a type of Ponzi scheme. After the platform administrators closed the earning platform on January 16, 2018, and refunded the users' investments in BCC following a 92% coin value crash, confidence was lost

Payments & settlement

BKash

bKash Limited (Bengali: বিকাশ d/b/a: bKash) is a mobile financial service (MFS) in Bangladesh operating under the authority of Bangladesh Bank as a subsidiary of BRAC Bank PLC. This mobile financial service company started as a joint venture between BRAC Bank PLC, and Money in Motion LLC.

Finance

Black Knight, Inc.

Black Knight, Inc. is an American corporation that provides integrated technology, services, data and analytics to the mortgage lending, servicing and real estate industries, as well as the capital and secondary markets. Black Knight is also known for its monthly benchmark data reports: Mortgage Monitor, a month-end analysis of mortgage performance statistics derived from Black Knight's

Payments & settlement

Blik

BLIK is a Polish mobile payment system launched in 2015. It is operated by Polski Standard Płatności (PSP).

Trading basics

Block trade

A block trade is a high-volume transaction in a security that is privately negotiated and executed outside of the open market for that security. Major broker-dealers often provide "block trading" services—sometimes known as "upstairs trading desks"—to their institutional clients. In the United States and Canada a block trade is usually at least 10,000 shares of a stock or $100,000 of bo

Trading basics

Block, Inc.

Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) is an American technology company and financial services provider for consumers and merchants. Founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey, it is the U.S. market leader in point-of-sale systems. As of 2024, Block has 57 million users and 4 million sellers, processing $241 billion in payments annually.

Networks

Blockchain privacy

Blockchain privacy describes how blockchain systems handle the confidentiality of transaction and record data. Many public blockchains can provide pseudonymity, while ledger transparency can allow transaction tracing through analysis of on-chain activity and related information. The persistence of ledger data can also create data-protection challenges in some applications, including ques

Networks

Blockchain-based Service Network

The Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) is a backend architecture in China for developing and managing blockchain-based applications, and is split into Chinese and International uses. BSN China, designed as the backbone of China's blockchain strategy, was established in 2018 and launched in 2020 by the State Information Center under the National Development and Reform Commission of Ch

Finance

Bloomberg Terminal

The Bloomberg Terminal is a computer software system provided by the financial data vendor Bloomberg L.P. that enables professionals in the financial service sector and other industries to access Bloomberg Professional Services through which users can monitor and analyze real-time financial market data and place trades on the electronic trading platform. It was developed by employees wor

Assets

BNB and BNB Chain

BNB is the native asset used by the BNB Chain ecosystem. This article covers its positioning, mechanisms, verification guidelines, and common misconceptions.

Networks

BNB Smart Chain (blockchain platform)

BNB Smart Chain (formerly Binance Smart Chain) is a public blockchain platform that uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and provides smart contract functionality. The platform's native cryptocurrency is BNB. The system is part of the broader Binance ecosystem founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao and Yi He.

Payments & settlement

Boku, Inc.

Boku, Inc. is a mobile payments company that allows businesses to collect online payments through both carrier billing and mobile wallets, and is headquartered in London, U.K. Boku utilizes mobile network operator (carrier) data for consumers online. Boku operates in over 90 countries globally, offering a bank-grade payment system.

Securities & exchanges

Book building

Book building is a systematic process of generating, capturing, and recording investor demand for shares. Usually, the issuer appoints a major investment bank to act as a major securities underwriter or bookrunner.

Fiat currencies

Boris Vujčić

Boris Vujčić (pronounced [bǒris ʋûːjtʃitɕ]; born 2 June 1964) is a Croatian economist, university professor, serving as Vice-President of the European Central Bank since June 2026. He previously served as Governor of the Croatian National Bank.

Assets

Börse Stuttgart

Börse Stuttgart is the sixth largest exchange group in Europe. It has strategic pillars in the capital markets business as well as in the digital and cryptocurrency business. Börse Stuttgart Group employs around 700 people at its locations in Stuttgart, Berlin, Frankfurt, Ljubljana, Milan, Madrid, Stockholm, and Zürich and holds a total of 18 licences from regulatory authorities in Germa

Securities & exchanges

Bourse Palace

The Bourse Palace (French: Palais de la Bourse; Dutch: Beurspaleis), often simply called the Bourse (French: la Bourse; Dutch: de Beurs), is a former stock exchange building in Brussels, Belgium. It was previously the seat of the Brussels Stock Exchange (BSE). Since 2023, its upper floors have housed the Belgian Beer World museum.

Banking

Boutique investment bank

A boutique investment bank is a small investment bank that specializes in at least one aspect of investment banking, generally corporate finance, although some banks' strengths are retail in nature, such as Charles Schwab. Of those involved in corporate finance, capital raising, mergers and acquisitions and restructuring and reorganizations are their primary activities. Boutiques usually

Payments & settlement

Braintree (company)

Braintree is an American company that primarily deals in mobile and web payment systems for e-commerce companies. The company was acquired by PayPal on September 26, 2013.

Finance

Brazil cost

Brazil cost (Portuguese: Custo Brasil [ˈkustu bɾaˈziw]) refers to the increased operational costs associated with doing business in Brazil, making Brazilian goods and services more expensive compared to other countries. For this reason, it is identified as a set of factors that undermine the competitiveness and efficiency of the domestic industry. The “Brazil cost” drains more than 1.5 t

Fiat currencies

Bretton Woods Conference

The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, to regulate what would be the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II.

Fiat currencies

Bretton Woods system

The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial relations among 44 countries, including the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, European countries, and Australia, after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement until the Jamaica Accords in 1976. The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary r

Payments & settlement

BRICS Pay

BRICS Pay (stylized as BRICS PAY) is a decentralized and independent payment messaging mechanism system that is affiliated with the BRICS organization.

Finance

Bridge bank

A bridge bank is an institution created by a national regulator or central bank to operate a failed bank until a buyer can be found.

Finance

Broker

A broker is a person or entity that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller. This may be done for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confused with that of an agent—one who acts on behalf of a principal party in a deal.

Trading basics

Broker-dealer

In financial services, a broker-dealer is a natural person, company or other organization that engages in the business of trading securities for its own account or on behalf of its customers. Broker-dealers are at the heart of the securities and derivatives trading process.

Payments & settlement

BTCPay Server

BTCPay Server is a free and open-source, self-hosted Bitcoin payment processor created in 2017 by Nicolas Dorier. The software allows merchants to accept bitcoin payments directly to their own wallets rather than through a centralized processor, and supports both on-chain Bitcoin and Lightning Network payments.

Trading basics

Budapest Stock Exchange

Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) (Hungarian: Budapesti Értéktőzsde, pronounced [ˈbudɒpɛʃti ˈeːrteːktøːʒdɛ] (BÉT)) is the third largest stock exchange in Central and Eastern Europe by market capitalization and liquidity. It is located at 55 Krisztina Boulevard, Budapest, Hungary, in the Buda Centre of the Hungarian National Bank Previously, from 1864, during the Austro-Hungarian Empire it wa

Finance

Buffett indicator

The Buffett indicator (or the Buffett metric, or the Market capitalization-to-GDP ratio) is a valuation multiple used to assess how expensive or cheap the aggregate stock market is at a given point in time. It was proposed as a metric by investor Warren Buffett in 2001, who called it "probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment", and its modern form co

Trading basics

Calendar effect

A calendar effect (or calendar anomaly) is the difference in behavior of a system that is related to the calendar such as the day of the week, time of the month, time of the year, time within the U.S. presidential cycle, or decade within the century. It is most often used in a financial context to describe a market anomaly; traders may use market timing to profit from moves in stock pric

Banking

Call report

All regulated financial institutions in the United States are required to file periodic financial and other information with their respective regulators and other parties. For banks in the U.S., one of the key reports required to be filed is the quarterly Consolidated Report of Condition and Income, generally referred to as the call report or RC report. Specifically, every National Bank

Finance

Cambodia Securities Exchange

The Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX; Khmer: ក្រុមហ៊ុនផ្សារមូលបត្រកម្ពុជា, abbreviation: ផមក) is the national stock exchange of Cambodia. The exchange's purpose is to achieve high economic growth by facilitating flows of capital, investment, and reallocation of capital based on capital market mechanisms. The exchange is headquartered in the Canadia Tower, in Cambodia's capital city, Phn

Trading basics

CAMELS rating system

The CAMELS rating is a supervisory rating system originally developed in the U.S. to classify a bank's overall condition. It is applied to every bank and credit union in the U.S. and is also implemented outside the U.S. by various banking supervisory regulators.

Payments & settlement

Capital account

In macroeconomics and international finance, the capital account, also known as the capital and financial account, records the net flow of investment into an economy. It is one of the two primary components of the balance of payments, the other being the current account. Whereas the current account reflects a nation's net income, the capital account reflects net change in ownership of na

Trading basics

Capital allocation line

Capital allocation line (CAL) is a graph created by investors to measure the risk of risky and risk-free assets. The graph displays the return to be made by taking on a certain level of risk. Its slope is known as the "reward-to-variability ratio".

Trading basics

Capital asset pricing model

In finance, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is a model used to determine a theoretically appropriate required rate of return of an asset, to make decisions about adding assets to a well-diversified portfolio. The model takes into account the asset's sensitivity to non-diversifiable risk (also known as systematic risk or market risk), often represented by the quantity beta (β) in t

Trading basics

Capital control

Capital controls are residency-based measures such as transaction taxes, other limits, or outright prohibitions that a nation's government can use to regulate flows from capital markets into and out of the country's capital account. These measures may be economy-wide, sector-specific (usually the financial sector), or industry specific (e.g. "strategic" industries). They may apply to all

Trading basics

Capital requirement

Capital requirements (or capital adequacy requirements) refer to the set of rules and guidance that banks must observe in most current bank prudential frameworks as exist in individual jurisdictions. They form a central component of bank regulation and supervision.

Trading basics

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically in several stages and is defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on inn

Finance

Capitalization rate

Capitalization rate (or "cap rate") is a real estate valuation measure used to compare different real estate investments. Although there are many variations, the cap rate is generally calculated as the ratio between the annual rental income produced by a real estate asset to its current market value. Most variations depend on the definition of the annual rental income and whether it is

Trading basics

Caribbean guilder

The Caribbean guilder (code: XCG; abbreviation: Cg; Dutch: Caribische gulden; Papiamento: florin karibense) is the currency of Curaçao and Sint Maarten, two constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is divided into 100 cents (Papiamento: sèn). Introduced on 31 March 2025, it replaced the Netherlands Antillean guilder (ANG), which ceased to be legal tender on 1 July 2025

Securities & exchanges

Carl Icahn

Carl Celian Icahn (; born February 16, 1936) is an American businessman and investor. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of Icahn Enterprises, a public company and diversified conglomerate holding company based in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. Icahn's business model is to take large stakes in companies that he believes will appreciate from changes to corporate policy; Icahn then

Finance

Carmen Reinhart

Carmen M. Reinhart (née Castellanos, born October 7, 1955) is a Cuban-American economist and the Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, she was the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for International Economics at t

Payments & settlement

Carta Worldwide

Carta Worldwide is a Canadian financial technology company that offers digital payments technology and modern card issuer processing for banks and financial technology "fintech" companies. In addition to their Canadian headquarters in Toronto, Carta has offices in London, Casablanca, and Charlottetown, PEI. Carta operates internationally, providing financial technology and digital payme

Finance

Casa de Moneda de la República Argentina

The Casa de Moneda de la República Argentina is the Argentine mint, controlled by the Argentine government and administratively subordinated to the Ministry of Economy. It was established in 1875 as "Casa de Moneda de la Nación".

Trading basics

Cascading failure

A cascading failure is a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of one or few parts leads to the failure of other parts, growing progressively as a result of positive feedback. This can occur when a single part fails, increasing the probability that other portions of the system fail. Such a failure may happen in many types of systems, including power transmissio

Finance

Cash conversion cycle

In management accounting, the cash conversion cycle (CCC) measures how long a firm will be deprived of cash if it increases its investment in inventory in order to expand customer sales. It is thus a measure of the liquidity risk entailed by growth. However, shortening the CCC creates its own risks: while a firm could even achieve a negative CCC by collecting from customers before paying

Banking

Cash Group

Cash Group is a cooperation of the four largest German private banks (Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, HypoVereinsbank, and Postbank) and their subsidiaries, in which they mutually waive ATM usage fees for their customers. It is not an interbank network but uses the pre-existing girocard network. With more than 4500 ATMs, the cooperating banks' ATM networks form the third largest ATM network

Trading basics

Cashier's check

A cashier's check (or cashier's cheque, cashier's order, official check; in Canada, the term bank draft is used, not to be confused with Banker's draft as used in the United States) is a check guaranteed by a bank, drawn on the bank's own funds and signed by a bank employee. Cashier's checks are treated as guaranteed funds because the bank, rather than the purchaser, is both the drawee a

Banking

CashPool

CashPool is a cooperation of a multitude of smaller or virtual German private banks, in which they mutually waive ATM usage fees for their customers. It is not an interbank network but uses the pre-existing German ATM or Maestro/Cirrus networks. With more than 2800 ATMs, the cooperating banks' ATM networks form the smallest ATM group in Germany.

Payments & settlement

CashU

CashU was an Arabic fintech company providing a digital wallet and online payment services for customers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The company was founded as a technology startup in July 2002 in association with online service company Maktoob in Amman, Jordan. It provided payment services for Maktoob online services. The company went through a number of rounds of

Finance

Cayman Islands

The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory in the western Caribbean. With a population of over 90,000, it is the most populated of all the British Overseas Territories. The 264-square-kilometre (102-square-mile) territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located south of Cuba and north-east of Honduras, betwee

Securities & exchanges

Cayman Islands Stock Exchange

The Cayman Islands Stock Exchange (CSX) is a stock exchange based in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. It started operations in July 1997 and is fully owned by the Cayman Islands government. The CSX was recognised by the London Stock Exchange as an approved organisation in July 1999.

Banking

Central bank independence

Central bank independence refers to the degree of autonomy and freedom a central bank has in conducting its monetary policy and managing the financial system and inflation targeting. The purpose of central bank independence is to maintain price stability, enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy, and ensure the stability of the financial system. Independent central banks have more cr

Finance

Central bank liquidity swap

Central bank liquidity swap, known as a swap line, is a type of cross-currency swap used by a country's central bank to provide liquidity of its currency to another country's central bank. In a liquidity swap, the lending central bank uses its currency to buy the currency of another borrowing central bank at the market exchange rate, and agrees to sell the borrower's currency back at a r

Banking

Central Bank of Honduras

The Central Bank of Honduras (Spanish: Banco Central de Honduras) is the central bank of Honduras, established in 1950. The president of the bank is appointed by President of Honduras for a term of four years.

Banking

Central Bank of Paraguay

The Central Bank of Paraguay (Spanish: Banco Central del Paraguay) is Paraguay's highest monetary authority, and the country's governing body, in finances and economics. Its headquarters are in Asunción's Carmelitas neighbourhood.

Finance

Central counterparty clearing

A central clearing counterparty (CCP), also referred to as a central counterparty, is a financial market infrastructure organization that takes on counterparty credit risk between parties to a transaction and provides clearing and settlement services for trades in foreign exchange, securities, options, and derivative contracts. CCPs are highly regulated institutions that specialize in ma

Payments & settlement

Central Electronic System of Payments

The Central Electronic System of Payments (CESOP) regime is an automatic exchange of information regime being introduced in the European Union from 1 January 2024. The rules were introduced by Council Directive 2020/284, amending the EU's Value-added tax Directive.

Banking

Central Reserve Bank of Peru

The Central Reserve Bank of Peru (Spanish: Banco Central de Reserva del Perú; BCRP) is the Peruvian central bank. It mints and issues metal and paper money, the sol.

Payments & settlement

Centurion Card

The American Express Centurion Card, colloquially known as the Black Card, is an exclusive invitation-only charge card issued by American Express. It is reserved for the company's wealthiest clients who meet certain net worth, credit quality, and spending requirements on its gateway card, the Platinum Card. The firm does not disclose the exact requirements to receive an invitation to car

Banking

Certificate of deposit

A certificate of deposit (CD) is a time deposit sold by banks, thrift institutions, and credit unions in the United States. CDs typically differ from savings accounts because the CD has a specific, fixed term before money can be withdrawn without penalty. CDs also generally have higher interest rates than savings accounts. CDs require a minimum deposit and may offer higher rates for larg

Trading basics

CFA franc

CFA franc (French: franc CFA, [fʁɑ̃ seɛfɑ]) is the name of two currencies used by 227 million people (as of 2026) in fourteen African countries:

Trading basics

CFP franc

The CFP franc (French: Franc pacifique, called the franc in everyday use) is the currency used in the French overseas collectivities (French: collectivités d'outre-mer, or COM) of French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Wallis and Futuna. The initials CFP originally stood for colonies françaises du Pacifique (lit. 'French colonies of the Pacific') but since 2022 is officially Collectivités

Payments & settlement

Change Healthcare

Change Healthcare Inc. (previously known as Emdeon) is a healthcare technology company that provides revenue cycle management and payment processing services for healthcare providers and insurers in the United States. The business was acquired by Optum in a $13 billion deal in 2022, in an effort to combine their service operations with the aforementioned technologies that Change Healthca

Payments & settlement

CHAPS

The Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS) is a real-time gross settlement payment system used for sterling transactions in the United Kingdom. It is mainly used by financial institutions to make wholesale financial payments and by large companies to make corporate treasury payments. In 2024, 52.7 million CHAPS payments were made, worth a total of £87.5 trillion. This made up ju

Payments & settlement

Charge card

A charge card is a type of credit card that enables the cardholder to make purchases which are paid for by the card issuer, to whom the cardholder becomes indebted. The cardholder is obliged to repay the debt to the card issuer in full by the due date, usually on a monthly basis, or be subject to late fees and restrictions on further card use. Charge cards are distinct from traditional c

Trading basics

Check 21 Act

The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (or Check 21 Act) is a United States federal law, Pub. L. 108–100 (text) (PDF), that was enacted on October 28, 2003 by the 108th U.S. Congress. The Check 21 Act took effect one year later on October 28, 2004. The law allows the recipient of a paper check to create a digital version of the original, a process known as check truncation, into an

Banking

Check kiting

Check kiting or cheque kiting (American and British English, respectively) is a form of bank check fraud, involving taking advantage of the float provided by a bank to make use of non-existent funds in a checking or other bank account. Thus, instead of being used as intended, as a negotiable instrument, checks are misused to source (and manage the flow and timing of) a form of unauthoriz

Payments & settlement

Checkout.com

Checkout.com (legally incorporated as Checkout Ltd.) is a financial technology company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It provides payment processing services, operating as a payment gateway, acquirer, and processor for enterprise clients in sectors such as e-commerce, technology, and media. In 2022, It had a valuation of $40 billion making it the most valuable European fintech

Payments & settlement

Cheque and Credit Clearing Company

The Cheque and Credit Clearing Company Limited (C&CCC) is a UK membership-based industry body whose 11 members are the UK clearing banks. The company has managed the cheque clearing system in England and Wales since 1985, in all of Great Britain since 1996 when it took over responsibility for managing the Scottish cheque clearing as well, and in the whole of the United Kingdom since the

Banking

Cheque clearing

Cheque clearing (or check clearing in American English) or bank clearance is the process of moving cash (or its equivalent) from one bank, from which a cheque is drawn, to another bank, in which it was deposited. Clearance is usually accompanied by the movement of the cheque to the paying bank, either in the traditional physical paper form or digitally under a cheque truncation system. T

Banking

Cheque fraud

Cheque fraud (Commonwealth English) or check fraud (American English) is a category of criminal acts that involve the unlawful use of cheques to illegally acquire or (effectively) to borrow funds that do not exist within an account balance or account-holder's legal ownership. Most methods involve taking advantage of the float (the money made available by a bank for a time between the pre

Trading basics

Cheque truncation

Cheque truncation (check truncation in American English, also cheque imaging) is a cheque clearance system which uses the digitization of a physical paper cheque into a substitute electronic form for transmission to the paying bank. The process of cheque clearance, involving data matching and verification, is undertaken using digital images instead of paper originals.

Banking

Chester Howell Ferguson

Chester Howell Ferguson (July 1, 1908 – March 3, 1983) was a prominent Tampa lawyer, banker and businessman whose record of community service was long and distinguished.

Finance

ChexSystems

ChexSystems is an American check verification service and consumer reporting agency owned by the eFunds subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services. It provides information about the use of deposit accounts by consumers.

Fiat currencies

Chiang Mai Initiative

The Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) is a multilateral currency swap arrangement among the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the People's Republic of China (including Hong Kong), Japan, and South Korea. It draws from a foreign exchange reserves pool worth US$120 billion and was launched on 24 March 2010. That pool has been expanded to $240 billion in 2012.

Trading basics

Chicago Board of Trade

The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) is an American futures and options exchange that was founded in 1848. It operated as an independent exchange for more than 150 years, before merging with its long-time rival the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to form CME Group in 2007. It is now a designated contract market of the CME Group.

Trading basics

Chicago Mercantile Exchange

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME; often called "the Chicago Merc", or "the Merc") is an American derivatives marketplace based in Chicago, Illinois, and located at 20 South Wacker Drive.

Fiat currencies

Chicago Plan

The Chicago Plan was introduced by University of Chicago economists in 1933 as a comprehensive plan to reform the monetary and banking system of the United States. The Great Depression had been caused in part by excessive private bank lending, so the plan proposed to eliminate the private bank money creation method of fractional reserve lending. Centralized money creation would prevent b