Industry WIKI

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.

The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is a financial concept used by lenders to express the ratio of a loan to the value of an asset purchased.

In finance, a long position in a financial instrument means the holder of the position owns a positive amount of the instrument. The holder of the position has the expectation that the financial instrument will increase in value. This is known as a bullish position. The term "long position" is often used in context of buying options contracts.

Magic formula investing is an investment technique outlined by Joel Greenblatt that uses the principles of value investing.

Manual fare collection is the practice of collecting fares manually (without the aid of an automated machine). "Fare collection" generally refers to the collection of fares in the transport industry in return for a ticket or passes to travel. Commonly used on buses and train transport systems (in the UK; in Poland, for example, buying and validating the tickets by machine is the passenge

The Margin-at-Risk (MaR) is a quantity used to manage short-term liquidity risks due to variation of margin requirements, i.e. it is a financial risk occurring when trading commodities. It is similar to the Value-at-Risk (VaR), but instead of simulating EBIT it returns a quantile of the (expected) cash flow distribution.

Mark-to-market (MTM or M2M) or fair value accounting is accounting for the "fair value" of an asset or liability based on the current market price, or the price for similar assets and liabilities, or based on another objectively assessed "fair" value. Fair value accounting has been a part of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in the United States since the early 1990s. Fail

Marketing management is the strategic organizational discipline that focuses on the practical application of marketing orientation, techniques and methods inside enterprises and organizations and on the management of marketing resources and activities.

MazaCoin (Maza, MZC) is a cryptocurrency launched in 2014 by developer Payu Harris. It was created with the goal of providing a digital currency for the Oglala Lakota tribe in South Dakota.

Mezzanine capital is a type of financing that sits between senior debt and equity in a company's capital structure. It is typically used to fund growth, acquisitions, or buyouts. Technically, mezzanine capital can be either a debt or equity instrument with a repayment priority between senior debt and common stock equity. Mezzanine debt is subordinated debt that represents a claim on a co

Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to borrowers with limited access to traditional credit who typically do not have access to traditional banking services due to a lack of collateral, steady employment, and a verifiable credit history. The primary aim of microcredit is to support entrepreneurship, facilitate self-employment, and alleviate poverty, particularly

Military payment certificates, or MPC, was a form of currency used to pay United States (US) military personnel in certain foreign countries in the mid and late twentieth century. They were used in one area or another from a few months after the end of World War II until a few months after the end of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War – from 1946 until 1973. The certificates were made

In the context of cryptocurrency mining, a mining pool is the pooling of resources by miners, who share their processing power over a network, to split the reward equally, according to the amount of work they contributed to the probability of finding a block. A "share" is awarded to members of the mining pool who present a valid partial proof-of-work. Mining in pools began when the diffi

Mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cash, cheque, or credit card, a consumer can use a payment app on a mobile device to pay for a wide range of services and digital or hard goods. Altho

MobileCoin, also known as Sentz, is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency developed by MobileCoin Inc., which was founded in 2017 by Josh Goldbard and Shane Glynn.

Mondex was a smart card electronic cash system, implemented as a stored-value card and owned by Mastercard.

Monero (; abbreviation: XMR) is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency which is private, untraceable, fungible, and decentralized.

Monetary disequilibrium theory is a product of the monetarist school and is mainly represented in the works of Leland Yeager and Austrian macroeconomics. The basic concepts of monetary equilibrium and disequilibrium were, however, defined in terms of an individual's demand for cash balance by Mises (1912) in his Theory of Money and Credit.

A money center bank (also written money-center bank) is a bank or bank holding company that is a particular kind of high-end commercial bank: located in a major financial center such as New York or San Francisco, its lending operations are financed by borrowings from other banks or by issuing bonds. Money center banks tend to engage in a number of different or related businesses, such as

The money market is a component of the economy that provides short-term funds. The money market deals in short-term loans, generally for a period of a year or less.

A money order is a directive to pay a pre-specified amount of money from prepaid funds, making it a more trusted method of payment than a cheque.

MoneyGram International, Inc. is an American interstate and international peer-to-peer payments and money transfer company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It has an operations center in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and regional and local offices around the world.

In economics, a moral hazard is a situation where an economic actor has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it will not bear the full costs associated with that risk. For example, when a corporation is insured, it may take on higher risk knowing that its insurance will pay the associated costs. A moral hazard may occur where the actions of the risk-taking party change t

In the United States, a mortgage note (also known as a real estate lien note or borrower's note) is a promissory note secured by a specified mortgage loan.

In the mortgage industry of the United States, mortgage servicing rights (MSR) are the contractual rights to service a mortgage after the mortgage origination process is complete. Mortgage servicing is the management of the repayment of mortgage debt on behalf of the lender, including the collection and recording of mortgage payments. The legal entity that holds the mortgage servicing ri

Namecoin (Abbreviation: NMC; sign:

Nano (Abbreviation: XNO) is a cryptocurrency characterized by a directed acyclic graph data structure and distributed ledger, making it possible for Nano to work without intermediaries. To agree on what transactions to commit (i.e., achieving consensus), it uses a voting system with weight based on the amount of currency an account holds.

NEAR is a public blockchain platform that uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and provides smart-contract functionality. Its native cryptocurrency is NEAR. It was founded in 2018 by Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov, with mainnet launching in 2020.

Neo is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency and application platform used to run smart contracts and decentralized applications. The project, originally named Antshares, was founded in 2014 by Da HongFei and Erik Zhang and rebranded as Neo in 2017. In 2017 and 2018, it became popular in China despite the recently enacted prohibition on cryptocurrency in that country.

Nervos Network is a proof-of-work blockchain platform which consists of multiple blockchain layers that are designed for different functions. The native cryptocurrency of this layer is called CKB. Smart contracts and decentralized applications can be deployed on the Nervos blockchain. The Nervos Network was founded in 2018.

In corporate finance, net operating profit after tax (NOPAT) is a company's after-tax operating profit for all investors, including shareholders and debt holders. NOPAT is used by analysts and investors as a precise and accurate measurement of profitability to compare a company's financial results across its history and against competitors.

Nium is a Singapore-headquartered cross-border payments company. Initially founded by Prajit Nanu and Michael Bermingham, and launched as a consumer-remittance platform Instarem in 2014. In 2016, the company introduced its B2B payments platform and rebranded as Nium in 2019, subsequently elevating Pratik Gandhi to co-founder in 2021. However, Gandhi left Nium in October 2023, around the

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

Novalnet is a European payment service provider that provides e-commerce businesses with electronic and point-of-sale payment processing services. The Novalnet platform is designed to automate merchants' business processes across the e-commerce value chain, from checkout to debt collection.

NXT is an open source cryptocurrency and payment network launched in 2013 by anonymous software developer BCNext. It uses proof-of-stake to reach consensus for transactions—as such, there is a static money supply. Unlike Bitcoin, there is no mining.

OpenTimestamps (OTS) is an open-source project that aims to provide a standard format for blockchain timestamping.

In business, operating margin—also known as operating income margin, operating profit margin, EBIT margin and return on sales (ROS) - is the ratio of operating income ("operating profit" in the UK) to net sales, usually expressed in percent.

Orange Money is the mobile phone based money transfer service of French telecom company Orange S.A., available in most of the group's affiliates in Africa. Its users can deposit money into an account linked to their mobile phone number, and then access a range of services, in particular transferring money domestically and internationally, paying bills and buying airtime top-up.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to corporate finance:

An overdraft occurs when something is withdrawn in excess of what is in a current account. For financial systems, this can be funds in a bank account. In these situations the account is said to be "overdrawn". In the economic system, if there is a prior agreement with the account provider for an overdraft, and the amount overdrawn is within the authorized overdraft limit, then interest i

An overnight indexed swap (OIS) is an interest rate swap (IRS) over some given term, e.g. 10Y, where the periodic fixed payments are tied to a given fixed rate while the periodic floating payments are tied to a floating rate calculated from a daily compounded overnight rate over the floating coupon period. The OIS term is not overnight; it is the underlying reference rate that is an over

The overnight market is the component of the money market involving the shortest term loan. The overnight market is primarily used by banks and other financial institutions. Lenders agree to lend borrowers funds only "overnight", i.e., the borrower must repay the borrowed funds plus interest at the start of business the next day. Given the short period of the loan, the interest rate cha

The price-to-book ratio, or P/B ratio, (also PBR) is a financial ratio used to compare a company's current market value to its book value (where book value is the value of all assets minus liabilities owned by a company). The calculation can be performed in two ways, but the result should be the same. In the first way, the company's market capitalization can be divided by the company's t

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

Pari passu is a Latin phrase that literally means "with an equal step" or "on equal footing". It is sometimes translated as "ranking equally", "hand-in-hand", "with equal force", or "moving together", and by extension, "fairly", "without partiality".

In finance, partial return reverse swap (PRRS) is a type of derivative swap, a financial contract that transfers a percentage of both the credit risk and market risk of an underlying asset, usually half, while also transferring all of the ownership liabilities for estate planning, tax purposes, and insider trading rules.

PayBox is an Israeli social payment application that facilitates peer-to-peer money transfers, group collections, and payments to businesses. Launched in 2014 by PayBox Ltd, the app was acquired by Israel Discount Bank in 2017 and has since operated as part of the Discount Group.

Paym ( PAY-əm) was a mobile payment system provided by banks and building societies in the United Kingdom. Recipients were identified by their mobile phone number instead of bank details such as sort code and account number.

A payment is the tender of something of value, such as money or its equivalent, by one party (such as a person or company) to another in exchange for goods or services provided by them, or to fulfill a legal obligation or philanthropy desire. The party making the payment is commonly called the payer, while the payee is the party receiving the payment. Whilst payments are often made volun

Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as banks, to a customer that enables its owner (the cardholder) to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and make payments by electronic transfer with a payment terminal and access automated teller machines (ATMs). Such cards are known by a variety of names

A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, payment instruments such as payment cards, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make its exchange possible. A payment system is an operational network which links bank accounts and provides for monetary exchange using bank dep

A payment terminal, also known as a point of sale (POS) terminal, card machine, credit card machine, card reader, PIN pad, EFTPOS terminal (or by the older term as PDQ terminal which stands for "Process Data Quickly"), is a device which interfaces with payment cards to make electronic funds transfers. The terminal typically consists of a secure keypad (called a PINpad) for entering PIN,

PayPoint plc is a British company that provides multichannel payment and retail services across the United Kingdom. Founded in 1996, the company facilitates payments through a nationwide network of convenience stores and offers services including bill payment, mobile phone top-ups, parcel delivery and collection, and Open Banking integrations.

PaysafeCard (until 2024 stylized paysafecard) is a prepaid e-commerce payment solution powered by vouchers. It is part of Paysafe, a global payments platform. PaysafeCard allows customers to pay online without providing personal financial information.

Peer-to-peer investing (P2PI) is the practice of investing money in notes issued by borrowers who are requesting a loan without going through a traditional financial intermediary and who are unknown to the investor. P2PI is not to be confused with Peer-to-peer lending (P2PL) which deals with the borrower's part. Investing takes place online via a peer-to-peer lending/investing company. T

Peer-to-peer lending (P2P lending) is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that match lenders with borrowers. Peer-to-peer lending companies often offer their services online, and attempt to operate with lower overhead and provide their services more cheaply than traditional financial institutions. As a result, lenders can earn higher returns

Peercoin, also known as Peer-to-Peer Coin, or PPC, is a cryptocurrency utilizing both proof-of-stake and proof-of-work systems. It is notable as the first cryptocurrency to implement the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.

The PEG ratio (price/earnings to growth ratio) is a valuation metric for determining the relative trade-off between the price of a stock, the earnings generated per share (EPS), and the company's expected growth.

Pepper (Hebrew: פפר) is an Israeli online banking service of Bank Leumi where all banking services are offered exclusively through a mobile app.

A perpetual bond, also known colloquially as a perpetual or perp, is a bond with no maturity date, therefore allowing it to be treated as equity, not as debt. Issuers pay coupons on perpetual bonds forever, and they do not have to redeem the principal. Perpetual bond cash flows are, therefore, those of a perpetuity.

In finance, perpetual futures, also known as perpetual swaps or colloquially as perps, are contract agreements to non-optionally buy or sell an asset at an unspecified point in the future. Perpetual futures are cash-settled, and they differ from regular futures in that they lack a pre-specified delivery date and can thus be held indefinitely without the need to roll over contracts as the

The petro (₽), or petromoneda, launched in February 2018, was a crypto token issued by the government of Venezuela.

Pix (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpiks]) is an instant payment platform created and managed by the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB). It enables free instant transfers between individuals in Brazilian real 24 hours a day without interruption, even outside banking hours and during holidays or weekends; payments made and received by legal entities may be subject to fees.

The point of sale (POS), or point of purchase (POP), is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice for the customer (which may be a cash register printout), and indicates the options for the customer to make payment. It is also the point at wh

Polkadot is a decentralized, nominated proof-of-stake blockchain with smart contract functionality. The cryptocurrency native to the blockchain is the DOT.

Polygon (formerly Matic Network) is a blockchain platform which aims to create a multi-chain blockchain system compatible with Ethereum. As with Ethereum, it uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism for processing transactions on-chain. Polygon's native token is POL, an ERC-20 token which allows for compatibility with other Ethereum cryptocurrencies. It is operated by Polygon Labs.

The Pooled Income Fund (PIF) is a type of charitable mutual fund or charitable trust that pools the securities or cash separately donated by an individual, a family or a corporation to a charity, which is then invested to provide dividends for both the donor's beneficiary and charity. The donations are irrevocable and tax-deductible and must be from personal assets. Capital gains taxes d

In finance, a position is the amount of a particular security, commodity or currency held or owned by a person or entity.

Postepay is an Italian company that offers a prepaid card service, launched at the end of 2003 and still marketed by Poste Italiane, which can be used anywhere in Italy (ATM and POS of the Postamat and Visa Electron circuits) and abroad (ATM and POS of the Visa/Visa Electron circuit), on the Internet (in sites that accept Visa and Visa Electron cards) and in all Italian post offices thro

"Pre-money valuation" is a term widely used in the private equity and venture capital industries. It refers to the valuation of a company or asset prior to an investment or financing. If an investment adds cash to a company, the company will have a valuation after the investment that is equal to the pre-money valuation plus the cash amount. That is, the pre-money valuation refers to the

In corporate finance,

In economics and finance, the price discovery process (also called price discovery mechanism) is the process of determining the price of an asset in the marketplace through the interactions of buyers and sellers.

The price/cash flow ratio (also called price-to-cash flow ratio or P/CF), is a financial ratio used to compare a company's market value to its cash flow. It is calculated by dividing the company's market cap by the company's operating cash flow in the most recent fiscal year (or the most recent four fiscal quarters); or, equivalently, divide the per-share stock price by the per-share ope

The price–earnings ratio (P/E ratio, P/E, or PER) is the ratio of a company's share price to the company's earnings per share. The ratio is used for valuing companies and to find out whether they are overvalued or undervalued.

The price-to-sales ratio (P/S ratio or PSR) is a financial ratio used to assess a company's market value relative to its revenue. It is calculated by dividing the company's market capitalization by its total revenue over a specified period, typically the trailing twelve months (TTM), or equivalently, by dividing the unit price of each share by the per-share revenue. Investors use this me

Private banking is a general description for banking, investment and other financial services provided by banks and financial institutions primarily serving high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) – those with very high income or substantial assets. Private banking is presented by those who provide such services as an exclusive subset of wealth management services, provided to particularly af

Private equity real estate is a term used in investment finance to refer to a specific subset of the real estate investment asset class. Private equity real estate refers to one of the four quadrants of the real estate capital markets, which include private equity, private debt, public equity and public debt.

Private placement or non-public offering is a funding round of securities which are sold not through a public offering, but rather through a private offering, mostly to a small number of chosen investors. Generally, these investors include friends and family, accredited investors, and institutional investors. Placement agents help find investors.

Profit margin is a financial ratio that measures the percentage of profit earned by a company in relation to its revenue. Expressed as a percentage, it indicates how much profit the company makes for every dollar of revenue generated. Profit margin is important because this percentage provides a comprehensive picture of the operating efficiency of a business or an industry. All margin ch

In economics, the profit motive is the motivation of firms that operate so as to maximize their profits. Mainstream microeconomic theory posits that the ultimate goal of a business is "to make money" - not in the sense of increasing the firm's stock of means of payment (which is usually kept to a necessary minimum because means of payment incur costs, i.e. interest or foregone yields), b

Proof of space (PoS) is a type of consensus algorithm achieved by demonstrating one's legitimate interest in a service (such as sending an email) by allocating a non-trivial amount of memory or disk space to solve a challenge presented by the service provider. The concept was formulated in 2013 by Dziembowski et al. and (with a different formulation) by Ateniese et al..

Proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols are a class of consensus mechanisms for blockchains that work by selecting validators in proportion to their quantity of holdings in the associated cryptocurrency. This is done to avoid the computational cost of proof-of-work (PoW) schemes. The first functioning use of PoS for cryptocurrency was Peercoin in 2012, although its scheme, on the surface, still r

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

The public market equivalent (PME) is a collection of performance measures developed to assess private equity funds and to overcome the limitations of the internal rate of return and multiple on invested capital measurements. While the calculations differ, they all attempt to measure the return from deploying a private equity fund's cash flows into a stock market index.

A public offering is the offering of securities of a company or a similar corporation to the public. Generally, the securities are to be publicly listed. In most jurisdictions, a public offering requires the issuing company to publish a prospectus detailing the terms and rights attached to the offered security, as well as information on the company itself and its finances. Many other reg

A public–private partnership (PPP, 3P, or P3) is a long-term arrangement between a government and private sector institutions. Typically, it involves private capital financing government projects and services up-front, and then drawing revenues from taxpayers and/or users for profit over the course of the PPP contract. Public–private partnerships have been implemented in multiple countri

Publicly traded private equity, also known as publicly quoted private equity or publicly listed private equity, is an investment firm or investment vehicle, which makes investments conforming to one of the various private equity strategies, and is listed on a public stock exchange.

Quahl ( k-oo-ah-l), formerly known as Initiative Q, was an attempt to create a new payment network and digital currency. It was created by Israeli entrepreneur Saar Wilf, who previously founded Fraud Sciences, a payment security company acquired by PayPal. Quahl is backed by Cato Institute economist Lawrence H. White. The initiative has indicated it will not take measures to evade state

Quality investing is an investment strategy based on a set of clearly defined fundamental criteria that seeks to identify companies with outstanding quality characteristics. The quality assessment is made based on soft (e.g. management credibility) and hard criteria (e.g. balance sheet stability). Quality investing supports best overall rather than best-in-class approach.

In finance, the quick ratio, also known as the acid-test ratio, is a liquidity ratio that measures the ability of a company to use near-cash assets (or 'quick' assets) to extinguish or retire current liabilities immediately. It is the ratio between quick assets and current liabilities.

In finance, return is a profit on an investment. It comprises any change in value of the investment, and/or cash flows (or securities, or other investments) which the investor receives from that investment over a specified time period, such as interest payments, coupons, cash dividends and stock dividends. It may be measured either in absolute terms (e.g., dollars) or as a percentage of

In financial economics, rational pricing is the assumption that asset pricing models must reflect the arbitrage-free price of the asset

A real estate derivative is a financial instrument whose value is based on the price of real estate. The core uses for real estate derivatives are: hedging positions, pre-investing assets and re-allocating a portfolio. The major products within real estate derivatives are: swaps, futures contracts, options (calls and puts) and structured products. Each of these products can use a differ

A remortgage (known as refinancing in the United States) is the process of paying off one mortgage with the proceeds from a new mortgage using the same property as security. The term is mainly used commercially in the United Kingdom, though what it describes is not unique to any one country. Often the purpose of switching is to secure a more favorable interest rate from a different lende

A renewable energy derivative is based on a new method of securitization, which is a structured finance process that pools and repackages cash-flow-producing financial assets into securities which are then sold to investors. The term "securitization" is derived from the fact that securities are used to obtain funds from investors.

Renting, also known as hiring or letting, is an agreement where a payment is made for the use of a good, service or property owned by another over a fixed period of time. Typically a written agreement is signed to establish the roles and expectations of both the tenant and landlord. There are many different types; a rental agreement tends to refer to short-term rental, whereas lease ref

In mathematical finance, a replicating portfolio for a given asset or series of cash flows is a portfolio of assets with the same properties (especially cash flows). This is meant in two distinct senses: static replication, where the portfolio has the same cash flows as the reference asset (and no changes need to be made to maintain this), and dynamic replication, where the portfolio doe

A repurchase agreement, also known as a repo, RP, or sale and repurchase agreement, is a form of secured short-term borrowing, usually, though not always, using government securities as collateral. A contracting party sells a security to a lender and, by agreement between the two parties, repurchases the security back shortly afterwards, at a slightly higher contracted price. The differe

Reserve requirements are central bank regulations that set the minimum amount that a commercial bank must hold in liquid assets. This minimum amount, commonly referred to as the commercial bank's reserve, is generally determined by the central bank on the basis of a specified proportion of deposit liabilities of the bank. This rate is commonly referred to as the cash reserve ratio or sh

Retail banking, also known as consumer banking or personal banking, is the provision of services by a bank to the general public, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks, which are often described as wholesale banking (corporate banking).