Industry WIKI

Know your customer or know your client (KYC) laws, regulations and guidelines in financial services require regulated businesses and professionals to verify the identity of a customer, and the suitability and risks involved with maintaining a business relationship with them. These procedures fit within the broader scope of anti-money laundering (AML) and counter terrorism financing (CTF)

Johan Gustaf Knut Wicksell (December 20, 1851 – May 3, 1926) was a Swedish economist of the Stockholm school. He was professor at Uppsala University and Lund University.

KodakCoin (stylized KODAKCoin) was a Kodak-branded blockchain cryptocurrency, used to plan payments for licensed photographers. It was also able to generate individualized cryptocurrency for its users through Kodak KashMiner, a Bitcoin-mining computer. Critics characterized Kodak's association with the cryptocurrency as a "desperate money grab."

Kodenshi AUK Group is a conglomerate of two companies, Kodenshi Corporation based in Kyoto, Japan and AUK Corporation based in Iksan, South Korea.

The Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC) is a South Korean deposit insurance corporation, established in 1996 to protect depositors and maintain the stability of the financial system. The main functions of KDIC are insurance management, risk surveillance, resolution, recovery, and investigation.

Korea Exchange (KRX, Korean: 한국거래소) is the sole securities exchange operator in South Korea. It is headquartered in Busan, and has an office for cash markets and market oversight in Seoul.

The Korea Financial Investment Association (KOFIA; Korean: 금융투자협회; RR: Geumnyung Tuja Hyeophoe) is a non-profit, self-regulatory organization (SRO) in South Korea, founded under the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act. It was established on February 4, 2009 through the merger of the Korea Securities Dealers Association, the Korea Futures Association, and the Asset Manag

The Korea Minting, Security Printing and ID Card Operating Corporation (KOMSCO; Korean: 한국조폐공사) is a state-owned corporation which is responsible to print and mint the banknotes and coins and other government documents. Its headquarters are located in Daejeon, South Korea.

The Korn–Kreer–Lenssen model (KKL model) is a discrete trinomial model proposed in 1998 by Ralf Korn, Markus Kreer and Mark Lenssen to model illiquid securities and to value financial derivatives on these.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI; Korean: 한국종합주가지수) is the index of all common stocks traded on the Stock Market Division—previously, Korea Stock Exchange—of the Korea Exchange. It is the representative stock market index of South Korea, analogous to the S&P 500 in the United States.

Kounta is an Australian software company founded in 2012. The company's flagship product, Kounta, comprises a cloud based point of sale mobile app.

Kraken (legally named Payward, Inc.) is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2011. It is the first cryptocurrency company to obtain a bank charter. In 2025, Kraken began allowing the trading of tokenized equities by non-US customers.

The KSE-100 Index is a total return stock index acting as a benchmark to compare prices on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) over a period.

KuCoin is a Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange. It was founded in China in 2017, but was later moved to Singapore following the Chinese government's restrictions on cryptocurrency companies, and eventually to the Seychelles.

L3COS (Level 3 Consensus Operating System) is an algorithm for digitising processes based on Blockchain, which has a three-level structure and is distributed as Platform as a Service for state bodies and businesses. The algorithm is based on the blockchain, in which any decision made at any of the levels will become part of the common chain. The technology involves a three-level framewor

La Caldera is a non-fungible token (NFT) collection created by Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira and Australian graphic designer BossLogic released on 21 September 2021. The collection consists of four pieces named "Zenith", "Caloris", "Watch, Don't Touch", and "Save Me from Myself". Each piece features music by Shakira and animated, digitally altered pictures of Shakira in the fantasy

Since the financial crisis, regulation of financial activities is at the center of economic and political events. The crisis has indeed led regulators but also the academic world to ask new questions about the effectiveness of regulation policies. To answer these questions, the French laboratory of excellence on financial regulation (Labex ReFi) was established at the initiative of the C

A labour-sponsored venture capital corporation (LSVCC), known alternately as labour-sponsored investment fund (LSIF) or simply retail venture capital (RVC), is a fund managed by investment professionals that invests in small to mid-sized Canadian companies. The Canadian federal government and some provincial governments offer tax credits to LSVCC investors to promote the growth of such c

In finance, a ladder, also known as a Christmas tree, is a combination of three options of the same type (all calls or all puts) at three different strike prices. A long ladder is used by traders who expect low volatility, while a short ladder is used by traders who expect high volatility. Ladders are in some ways similar to strangles, vertical spreads, condors, or ratio spreads.

Lagos Preparatory & Secondary School (LPSS) is a private co-educational day school in the affluent Ikoyi suburb of Lagos, Nigeria, and has adopted the UK National Curriculum; it was established in 2002. LPSS which was formerly known as LPS, provides Early Years, Primary and Secondary school education for children from 18 months up to age 16+.

Land banking is the practice of aggregating parcels of land for future sale or development.

LandlordInvest is a peer-to-peer lending platform that enables people to invest in residential, commercial, and semi-commercial bridging and development loans. The platform's target audiences are professional property investors and landlords. It was the first residential property-backed Innovative Finance ISA made available to UK savers.

Landmark Credit Union is an American credit union providing banking services in Wisconsin and Northern Illinois . It operates as a cooperative and is owned by its members. Landmark provides banking services including, savings accounts, checking accounts, mortgages and investments.

LankaPay (formerly LankaClear) national payment network of Sri Lanka which provides the central payment infrastructure to the country's financial sector. Established in April 1, 2002, the organization is owned by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) and all CBSL-licensed commercial banks in the country.

LankaQR, stylised in all caps as LANKAQR, is a national QR code payment system in Sri Lanka, initiated by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) in collaboration with LankaClear (Pvt) Ltd and licensed financial institutions. The standard was introduced on 12 October 2018 and formally launched on 11 March 2019, aiming to promote a cashless society, enhance financial inclusion, and reduce re

Lars Erik Oscar Svensson, is a Swedish economist. He was on the faculty of Princeton University 2001–2009. Since June 2014, he is Affiliated Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics. Since 2009 he is Affiliated Professor at Stockholm University. He has published significant research in macroeconomics, especially monetary economics, international trade and general equilibrium theory

The Latin American debt crisis (Spanish: Crisis de la deuda latinoamericana; Portuguese: Crise da dívida latino-americana) was a financial crisis that originated in the early 1980s (and for some countries starting in the 1970s), often known as La Década Perdida (The Lost Decade), when Latin American countries reached a point where their foreign debt exceeded their earning power and they

In quantitative finance, a lattice model is a numerical approach to the valuation of derivatives in situations requiring a discrete time model. For dividend paying equity options, a typical application would correspond to the pricing of an American-style option, where a decision to exercise is allowed at the closing of any calendar day up to the maturity. A continuous model, on the othe

In economics, the law of one price (LOOP) states that in the absence of trade frictions (such as transport costs and tariffs), and under conditions of free competition and price flexibility (where no individual sellers or buyers have power to manipulate prices and prices can freely adjust), identical goods sold at different locations should be sold for the same price when prices are expr

The law of the British Virgin Islands is a combination of common law and statute, and is based heavily upon English law.

LBRY (pronounced "library") is a blockchain-based file-sharing and payment network that is primarily used for social networks and video platforms.

Le Freeport, formerly known as Singapore Freeport, is a high-security storage and display facility in Singapore. Since 2022, the facility is owned by Chinese-born Singaporean cryptocurrency billionaire Jihan Wu through his holding company Bitdeer Technologies. Prior to that, a majority stake was held by Natural Le Coultre S.A. of art dealer and shipper Yves Bouvier. Opened near Singapore

A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the lessee) to pay the owner (referred to as the lessor) for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial or business equipment are also leased. In essence, a lease agreement is a contract between two parties: the lessor and the lessee. The lessor is the legal

Lease-by-room, also known as individual leasing, is an arrangement whereby a tenant and their roommates pay rent for their own rooms instead of each tenant being equally liable for the rent for the whole apartment. Typically lease-by-room leases are multi-room apartments or townhomes with shared bathrooms and living rooms. What distinguishes lease-by-room leases from joint leases is that

A leasehold estate or a leasehold interest is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant has rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a leasehold estate is typically considered personal property.

The least developed countries (LDCs) are developing countries listed by the United Nations that exhibit the lowest indicators of socioeconomic development. The concept of LDCs originated in the late 1960s and the first group of LDCs was listed by the UN in its resolution 2768 (XXVI) on 18 November 1971.

Lebanese pound or Lebanese lira is the currency of Lebanon. It was formerly divided into 100 piastres (Arabic: قرش qirsh) but, because of high inflation during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), subunits were discontinued.

The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) is a unique global identifier for legal entities participating in financial transactions. Also known as an LEI code or LEI number, its purpose is to help identify legal entities on a globally accessible database. Legal entities are organizations such as companies or government entities that participate in financial transactions. An individual person may

In law, liable means "responsible or answerable in law; legally obligated". Legal liability concerns both civil law and criminal law and can arise from various areas of law, such as contracts, torts, taxes, or fines given by government agencies. The claimant is the one who seeks to establish, or prove, liability.

Legal risk as a subset of operational risk that comprises the uncertainty associated with a business becoming a subjects of legal liability and obligations as a result of its operation.

Legal tender is a form of money that the law recognises as valid for the discharge of a monetary debt in a jurisdiction. What constitutes legal tender varies between jurisdictions.

Lemon Wallet was a cloud-based digital wallet that allowed users to store digital copies of credit cards, debit cards, reward cards, as well as identification, and other card information. The service was released in July 2011 and the company is based in Palo Alto, California, United States. Wences Casares was the company's CEO.

In public finance, a lender of last resort (LOLR) is a financial entity, generally a central bank, that acts as the provider of liquidity to a financial institution which finds itself unable to obtain sufficient liquidity in the interbank lending market when other facilities or such sources have been exhausted. It functions as a government guarantee of liquidity to financial institutions

Leslie Lee Alexander (born June 30, 1943) is an American attorney, businessman and financier. He is a former bond trader from New York. He formerly owned the National Basketball Association (NBA) team Houston Rockets for 24 years, from 1993 to 2017.

The proposed bill Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Bill is officially contained in the United States House of Representatives bill entitled H.R. 4191: Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act of 2009. It is a proposed piece of legislation that was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on December 3, 2009 to assess a tax on US f

A letter of credit (LC), also known as a documentary credit or bankers commercial credit, or letter of undertaking (LoU), is a payment mechanism used in international trade to provide an economic guarantee from a creditworthy bank to an exporter of goods. Letters of credit are used extensively in the financing of international trade, when the reliability of contracting parties cannot be

LevelUp was an American white-label platform for restaurants offering mobile ordering, QR-code payments and loyalty/CRM tools. It was created by Boston-based startup SCVNGR. Grubhub announced its acquisition of LevelUp for US$390 million in July 2018 and closed the deal on September 13, 2018. Post-acquisition, LevelUp’s technology was integrated into Grubhub’s restaurant-facing products,

In finance, leverage, also known as gearing, is any technique involving borrowing funds to buy an investment.

Leverage is defined as the ratio of the asset value to the cash needed to purchase it. The leverage cycle can be defined as the procyclical expansion and contraction of leverage over the course of the business cycle. The existence of procyclical leverage amplifies the effect on asset prices over the business cycle.

A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loans, along with the assets of the acquiring company. The use of debt, which normally has a lower cost of capital than equity, serves to reduce the o

In corporate finance, a leveraged recapitalization is a change of the company's capital structure, usually substitution of debt for equity.

Lewis S. Ranieri (; born 1947) is a former bond trader, and founding partner and current chairman of Ranieri Partners, a real estate firm.

Liability-driven investment (LDI) is an asset–liability management approach that designs the asset portfolio around the size, timing, and risk profile of known obligations. It is used by defined benefit pension schemes and insurers to reduce funding volatility and to help ensure cash is available when benefits fall due.

Liberty Reserve was a Costa Rica-based centralized digital currency service that billed itself as the "oldest, safest and most popular payment processor, serving millions all around a world". Liberty Reserve was conceived as a "PayPal for the unbanked," allowing the 2.5 billion people without bank accounts or credit histories to participate in the modern economy. The site had over one mi

The London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (Libor LY-bor) was an interest rate average calculated from estimates submitted by the leading banks in London. Each bank estimated what it would be charged were it to borrow from other banks. It was the primary benchmark, along with the Euribor, for short-term interest rates around the world. Libor was phased out at the end of 2021, with market partic

The LIBOR market model, also known as the BGM Model (Brace Gatarek Musiela Model, in reference to the names of some of the inventors) is a financial model of interest rates. It is used for pricing interest rate derivatives, especially exotic derivatives like Bermudan swaptions, ratchet caps and floors, target redemption notes, autocaps, zero coupon swaptions, constant maturity swaps and

The Libor scandal was a series of criminal allegations by financial authorities connected to the Libor (London Inter-bank Offered Rate) and the related Euribor benchmark, together with the resulting investigations and prosecutions. All ten convictions in the United States were overturned or vacated by 2022, after appellate courts held there was no evidence traders had broken any laws or

A life settlement or viatical settlement (from Latin viaticum, something received before death) is the sale of an existing life insurance policy (typically of seniors) for more than its cash surrender value, but less than its net death benefit, to a third party investor. Such a sale provides the policy owner with a lump sum. The third party becomes the new owner of the policy, pays the m

The Lightning Network (LN) is a payment protocol built on the bitcoin blockchain. It is intended to enable fast transactions among participating nodes (independently run members of the network) and has been proposed as a solution to the bitcoin scalability problem.

Lightspeed Commerce is a point-of-sale and e-commerce software provider based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 2005 by Dax da Silva, who was its CEO until February 2022. It has offices in Montreal, New York, Ottawa, Toronto, London, Belfast, Amsterdam, Berlin, Geneva, Ghent, Melbourne, Ulyanovsk, Yerevan and Tbilisi. It offers its services to retail, restaurant, and hospit

The Liikanen Report or "Report of the European Commission’s High-level Expert Group on Bank Structural Reform" (known as the "Liikanen Group") is a set of recommendations published in October 2012 by a group of experts led by Erkki Liikanen, governor of the Bank of Finland and ECB council member. On 3 July 2013, by large majority the European Parliament adopted an own initiative report c

Line (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese freeware app and service for instant messaging and social networking, operated by the Japanese company LY Corporation, co-owned by SoftBank Group and Naver. Line was launched in Japan in June 2011 by NHN Japan, a subsidiary of Naver.

A line break chart, also known as a three-line break chart, is a Japanese trading indicator and chart used to analyze the financial markets. Invented in Japan, these charts had been used for over 150 years by traders there before being popularized by Steve Nison in the book Beyond Candlesticks. The chart is made up of vertical blocks or bars called "lines", which indicate the market's di

Link (stylised as LINK) is the UK’s main ATM network, which allows consumers to withdraw cash from ATMs which do not belong to their bank. It is the largest interbank network in United Kingdom.

A linked exchange rate system is a type of exchange rate regime that pegs the exchange rate of one currency to another. It is the exchange rate system implemented in Hong Kong to stabilise the exchange rate between the Hong Kong dollar (HKD) and the United States dollar (USD). The Macao pataca (MOP) is similarly linked to the Hong Kong dollar.

Liquidation or winding-up is the process in law by which a company is brought to an end and its assets and property distributed to claimants. When a company has been liquidated, it is sometimes said to be wound-up or dissolved, although dissolution technically refers only to the final stage of liquidation.

Liquidity at risk (LaR) is a financial risk measure that estimates the potential net cash outflows an institution may face over a specified time horizon and confidence level. It is designed to quantify the risk that a bank, investment fund, or corporation will be unable to meet its short-term obligations due to unexpected demands on liquidity. The concept is closely related to Value at R

In financial economics, a liquidity crisis is an acute shortage of liquidity. Liquidity may refer to market liquidity (the ease with which an asset can be converted into a liquid medium, e.g. cash), funding liquidity (the ease with which borrowers can obtain external funding), or accounting liquidity (the health of an institution's balance sheet measured in terms of its cash-like assets)

In macroeconomic theory, liquidity preference is the demand for money, considered as liquidity. The concept was first developed by John Maynard Keynes in his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) to explain the determination of the interest rate by the supply and demand for money.

Liquidity risk is a financial risk that for a certain period of time a given financial asset, security or commodity cannot be traded quickly enough in the market without impacting the market price.

This is a table of notable American exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. As of 2020, the number of exchange-traded funds worldwide was over 7,600, representing about 7.74 trillion U.S. dollars in assets. The largest ETF, as of April 2021, was the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE Arca: SPY), with about $353.4 billion in assets. The second-largest was the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF with around $270.

This list covers formal bank stress testing programs, as implemented by major regulators worldwide. It does not cover bank proprietary, internal testing programs.

This is a list of banking crises. A banking crisis is a financial crisis that affects banking activity. Banking crises include bank runs, which affect single banks; banking panics, which affect many banks; and systemic banking crises, in which a country experiences many defaults and financial institutions and corporations face great difficulties repaying contracts. A banking crisis is ma

This is a list of ministers of the budget of France (French: Ministres du Budget), sometimes called Minister for the Budget (Ministre délégué au Budget) or Secretary of State for the Budget (Aecrétaire d'État au Budget), since the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. The officeholder works closely with the Minister of the Economy and Finance, as both ministers share the sa

This is a list of abbreviations used in a business or financial context.

This is a list of countries and territories by their exchange rate regime.

This is the list of countries by flows of received foreign direct investment (FDI). The list includes sovereign states and self-governing dependent territories based upon the ISO standard ISO 3166-1.

This is the list of countries by flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) abroad. The list includes sovereign states and self-governing dependent territories based upon the ISO standard ISO 3166-1.

Foreign exchange reserves, also called Forex reserves, in a strict sense, are foreign-currency deposits held by nationals and monetary authorities. However, in popular usage and in the list below, it also includes gold reserves, special drawing rights (SDRs), and IMF reserve positions because this total figure (more accurately called "official reserves", "international reserves", or "off

This article contains a list of countries by government debt. Gross government debt is government financial liabilities that are debt instruments. A debt instrument is a financial claim that requires payment of interest and/or principal by the debtor to the creditor in the future. Examples include debt securities (such as bonds and bills), loans, and government employee pension obligatio

Disasters can have high costs associated with responding to and recovering from them. This page lists the estimated economic costs of relatively recent disasters.

This is a list of electronic toll collection systems in use on toll roads throughout the world.

A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies, and other related finance corporations have their headquarters offices. In major cities, financial districts often host skyscrapers and other buildings of architectural importance and are called financial centres; such major centres also include important financial

This is a list of former stock exchanges in the Americas, including North America, South America, and the Caribbean Islands. Year of formation and the year the exchange was acquired, liquidated, or folded are also included. Some of these exchanges remain active as subsidiaries or divisions of other current exchanges (see current stock exchanges in the Americas). See regional stock exchan

This is a list of notable futures exchanges. Those stock exchanges that also offer trading in futures contracts besides trading in securities are listed both here and the list of stock exchanges.

A national development bank is a development bank created by a country's government that provides financing for the purposes of economic development of the country.

The following is a list of publicly traded companies, that have the largest market capitalization or "market value". Most or all of these companies would be categorized as megacap stocks.

The following is a list of securities examinations and the organizations that offer them.

This is a list of major stock exchange mergers and acquisitions in the Americas. It also features the name of any resultant stock exchanges from mergers or acquisitions. According to Robert E. Wright of Bloomberg in 2013, historians assert that "rather than exhibiting a trend of constant consolidation, the number of exchanges active across the globe has waxed and waned several times over

Notable stock market indices include:

Certain large banks are tracked and labelled by several authorities as Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs), depending on the scale and the degree of influence they hold in global and domestic financial markets.

This page, a companion page to tax, lists different taxes by economic design. For different taxes by country, see Tax rates around the world.

A listed investment company (LIC) is an Australian closed-end collective investment scheme similar to investment trusts in the UK and closed-end funds in the United States. Instead of regularly issuing new shares or canceling shares as investors join and leave the fund, investors buy and sell to each other on the ASX. They are traded like other securities on the Australian stock exchange

In corporate finance, a listing refers to the company's shares being on the list (or board) of stock that are publicly listed. Some stock exchanges allow shares of a foreign company to be listed and may allow dual listing, subject to conditions.

Litecoin (abbreviation: LTC) is a cryptocurrency and open-source software project created by Charlie Lee and released in 2011. Its software was derived from Bitcoin's codebase. Litecoin uses a scrypt-based proof-of-work system, targets a block interval of 2.5 minutes, and has a maximum supply of 84 million litecoins.

Livestream shopping (also known as live video shopping) is used by brands to promote and sell products through livestreams on digital platforms, often in collaboration with influencers.

Lloyd's Coffee House was a significant meeting place in London in the 17th and 18th centuries.

LME Copper is a group of spot, forward, and futures contracts, trading on the London Metal Exchange (LME), for delivery of Copper (Grade A), which can be used for price Hedging, physical delivery of sales or purchases, investment, and speculation.

LME Nickel refers to the spot, forward, and futures contracts, trading on the London Metal Exchange (LME) for primary nickel. These contracts are used for price hedging, physical delivery, investment, and speculation. Nickel futures contracts are used to hedge price risks and as a reference for prices. As of late 2024, LME nickel contracts were linked to approximately 230,000 tonnes of p

LME Zinc is a group of spot, forward, and futures contracts traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME) for the delivery of zinc. The zinc, which is of 99.9% purity, can be used for pre-sale handling and physical delivery of sales or purchases, and investments. Producers, semi-fabricators, consumers, recyclers, and merchants can use zinc futures contracts to hedge zinc price risks and to r