Industry WIKI

A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is a software system for organization of other computer programs handled through a decentralized ledger technology like a blockchain. These systems are used most commonly to handle voting and finances, among other processes. The precise legal status of this type of organization system is unclear.

Decentralized finance (often stylized as DeFi) provides financial instruments and services through smart contracts on a programmable, permissionless blockchain. This approach reduces the need for intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks. DeFi platforms enable users to lend or borrow funds, speculate on asset price movements using derivatives, trade cryptocurrencies, insure

Deferred financing costs or debt issuance costs is an accounting concept meaning costs associated with issuing debt (loans and bonds), such as various fees and commissions paid to investment banks, law firms, auditors, regulators, and so on. Since these payments do not generate future benefits, they are treated as a contra debt account. The costs are capitalized, reflected in the balance

At the micro-economic level, deleveraging refers to the reduction of the leverage ratio, or the percentage of debt in the balance sheet of a single economic entity, such as a household or a firm. It is the opposite of leveraging, which is the practice of borrowing money to acquire assets and multiply gains and losses.

In finance, delta neutral describes a portfolio of related financial securities, in which the portfolio value remains unchanged when small changes occur in the value of the underlying security (having zero delta). Such a portfolio typically contains options and their corresponding underlying securities such that positive and negative delta components offset, resulting in the portfolio's

Delta one products are financial derivatives that have no optionality and as such have a delta of (or very close to) one – meaning that for a given instantaneous move in the price of the underlying asset there is expected to be an identical move in the price of the derivative. Delta one products can sometimes be synthetically assembled by combining options. For instance, you can be long

Demurrage currency, also known as depreciating money or stamp scrip in its paper money form, is a type of money that is designed to gradually lose purchasing power at a constant rate. Demurrage money is often confused with inflation, as they both cause money to lose value, but they have significantly different economic effects. Unlike normal money, demurrage is designed to be only a temp

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM; Filipino: Kagawaran ng Badyet at Pamamahala) is an executive body under the Office of the President of the Philippines. It is responsible for the sound and efficient use of government resources for national development and also as an instrument for the meeting of national socio-economic and political development goals.

The Department of Finance is a department of the Australian Government that is responsible for assisting the government across a wide range of policy areas to ensure its outcomes are met, particularly with regard to expenditure, fiscal management and operations of government.

The Department of Finance (Irish: An Roinn Airgeadais) is a department of the Government of Ireland. It is led by the Minister for Finance.

The Department of Finance (DoF, Irish: An Roinn Airgeadais, Ulster-Scots: Männystrie o Siller) is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive. The minister with overall responsibility for the department is the Minister for Finance. The incumbent Minister is John O'Dowd.

Papua New Guinea's Department of Finance is responsible for the "protection of public money" in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It aims to improve "the transparency and accountability of the accounting and financial reporting and their frameworks" in the country. The department is led by a Minister of Finance. The headquarters of the department are at Vulupindi Haus, Waigani.

The Department of Finance (DOF; Filipino: Kagawaran ng Pananalapi) is the executive department of the Philippine government responsible for the formulation, institutionalization and administration of fiscal policies, management of the financial resources of the government, supervision of the revenue operations of all local government units, the review, approval and management of all publ

The Department of Finance Canada (French: Ministère des Finances Canada) is a central agency of the Government of Canada. The department assists the minister of finance in developing the government's fiscal framework and advises the government on economic and financial issues. A principal role of the department is assisting the government in the development of its annual budget.

A deposit account is a bank account maintained by a financial institution in which a customer can deposit and withdraw money. Deposit accounts can be savings accounts, current accounts or any of several other types of accounts explained below.

Deposit risk is a type of liquidity risk of a financial institution that is generated by deposits either with defined maturity dates (then such deposits are called 'time' or 'term' deposits) or without defined maturity dates (then such deposits are called 'demand' or 'non-maturity' deposits).

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) is an American financial market infrastructure company that provides clearing, settlement and trade reporting services to financial market participants. It performs the exchange of securities on behalf of buyers and sellers and functions as a central securities depository by providing central custody of securities.

In finance, a derivative is a contract between a buyer and a seller. The derivative can take various forms, depending on the transaction, but every derivative has the following four elements:

In derivatives trading, the term diagonal spread is applied to an options spread position that shares features of both a calendar spread and a vertical spread. It is established by simultaneously buying and selling equal amount of option contracts of the same type (call options or put options) but with different strike prices and expiration dates.

The Diamond–Dybvig model is an influential model of bank runs and related financial crises. The model shows how banks' mix of illiquid assets (such as business or mortgage loans) and liquid liabilities (deposits which may be withdrawn at any time) may give rise to self-fulfilling panics among depositors. Douglas Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig, along with Ben Bernanke, were the recipients o

Digital banking is part of the broader context for the move to online banking, where banking services are delivered over the internet. The shift from traditional to digital banking has been gradual, remains ongoing, and is constituted by differing degrees of banking service digitization. Digital banking involves high levels of process automation and web-based services and may include AP

The Diplomatic Area (Arabic: المنطقة الدبلوماسية; transliterated: al-Mantiqah ad-Diblomasiyah) is an area that is located within the Central Business District of Manama, the capital city of Bahrain, an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf.

A direct bank (sometimes called a branch-less bank or virtual bank) is a bank that offers its services only via the Internet, mobile app, email, and other electronic means, often including telephone, online chat, and mobile check deposit. A direct bank has no branch network. It may offer access to an independent banking agent network and may also provide access via ATMs (often through in

A direct debit or direct withdrawal is a mandated financial transaction whereby a payer authorizes a payee to draw varying recurring amounts directly from the payer's bank account, commonly used for billing utilities, loans, and subscriptions. Formally, the organisation that calls for the funds ("the payee") instructs their bank to collect (i.e., debit) an amount directly from another's

Direct market access (DMA) in financial markets is the electronic trading infrastructure that gives investors wishing to trade in financial instruments a way to interact with the order book of an exchange. Normally, trading on the order book is restricted to broker-dealers and market making firms that are members of the exchange. Using DMA, investment companies (also known as buy side fi

Discount policy is a policy tool used by central banks to control the money in circulation by raising or lowering interest rates.

A distributed ledger (also called a shared ledger or distributed ledger technology or DLT) is a system whereby replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data is geographically spread (distributed) across many sites, countries, or institutions. In contrast to a centralized database, a distributed ledger does not require a central administrator, and consequently does not have a single (

In private equity investing, distribution waterfall is a method by which the capital gained by the fund is allocated between the limited partners (LPs) and the general partner (GP).

In finance, a dividend future is an exchange-traded derivative contract that allows investors to take positions on future dividend payments. Dividend futures can be on a single company, a basket of companies, or on an Equity index. They settle on the amount of dividend paid by the company, the basket of companies, or the index during the period of the contract.

The dividend yield of a share is the ratio of annualised cash dividends to the share's current market price. It is usually expressed as a percentage and is commonly calculated by dividing the annual dividend per share by the current share price.

Double-spending is the unauthorized spending of the same money (either digital or conventional) more than once. As with counterfeit money, double-spending leads to supply inflation by creating a new amount of copied currency that did not previously exist. It can also devalue the currency and diminish user trust in the currency.

The drawdown is the measure of the decline from a historical peak in some variable (typically the cumulative profit or total open equity of a financial trading strategy).

Dupont analysis is a tool used in financial analysis, where return on equity (ROE) is separated into its component parts.

In finance, duration is a measure of how the price of a fixed-income instrument responds to a change in interest rates. It is used to compare rate risk across bonds and to construct hedges, and is often paired with convexity and the price value of a basis point. Duration-based estimates work best for small, parallel shifts in the yield curve.

In finance and accounting, and particularly in asset and liability management (ALM), the duration gap measures how well matched are the timings of cash inflows (from assets) and cash outflows (from liabilities), and is then one of the primary asset–liability mismatches considered in the ALM process.

Dynamic currency conversion (DCC) or cardholder preferred currency (CPC) is a process whereby the amount of a credit card transaction is converted at the point of sale, ATM or internet to the currency of the card's country of issue. DCC is generally provided by third party operators in association with the merchant, and not by a card issuer. Card issuers permit DCC operators to offer DCC

The early history of private equity relates to one of the major periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital experienced growth along parallel although interrelated tracks.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, commonly known as EBITDA ( EE-bit-dah, EB-it-dah), is a measure of a company's profitability of the operating business only, before any effects of indebtedness, state-mandated payments, and costs required to maintain its asset base. It is derived by subtracting from revenues all costs of the operating business (e.g., wages,

An earnings call is a teleconference or webcast in which a public company discusses its financial results for a reporting period, often providing earnings guidance for future performance. The term stems from earnings per share (EPS), calculated as net income (the "bottom line" on the income statement divided by the number of outstanding shares). Earnings calls typically accompany a press

Earnings per share (EPS) is the monetary value of earnings per outstanding share of common stock for a company during a defined period of time, often a year. It is a key measure of corporate profitability, focusing on the interests of the company's owners (shareholders), and is commonly used to price stocks.

Earning yield is the quotient of earnings per share (E), divided by the share price (P), giving E/P. It is the reciprocal of the P/E ratio.

Ease of movement (EMV) is an indicator used in technical analysis to relate an asset's price change to its volume. Ease of Movement was developed by Richard W. Arms, Jr. and highlights the relationship between volume and price changes and is particularly useful for assessing the strength of a trend. High positive values indicate the price is increasing on low volume: strong negative valu

In finance, mainly for financial services firms, economic capital (ecap) is the amount of risk capital, assessed on a realistic basis, which a firm requires to cover the risks that it is running or collecting as a going concern, such as market risk, credit risk, legal risk, and operational risk. It is the amount of money that is needed to secure survival in a worst-case scenario. Firms a

The efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) is a hypothesis in financial economics that states that asset prices reflect all available information. A direct implication is that it is impossible to "beat the market" consistently on a risk-adjusted basis since market prices should only react to new information.

Electronic billing or electronic bill payment and presentment, is when a seller such as company, organization, or group sends its bills or invoices over the internet, and customers pay the bills electronically. This replaces the traditional method where invoices are sent in paper form and payments are done by manual means such as sending cheques.

Electronic Regulatory Reporting (eRR) is a universal regulatory reporting solution based on legal and technical standards governed by the Energy Traders Europe (formerly European Federation of Energy Traders) that allow users to report transactions and lifecycle events to multiple regulatory reporting regimes via a uniform interface and a single message submitted in the Commodity product

Electronic trading, sometimes called e-trading, is the buying and selling of stocks, bonds, foreign currencies, financial derivatives, cryptocurrencies, and other financial instruments online. This is typically done using electronic trading platforms where traders can place orders and have them executed at a trading venue such as a stock market, either directly or via a broker.

Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America is a retirement plan recordkeeping financial holding company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, United States. It is the second-largest retirement plan provider in the United States.

An energy derivative is a derivative contract based on (derived from) an underlying energy asset, such as natural gas, crude oil, or electricity. Energy derivatives are exotic derivatives and include exchange-traded contracts such as futures and options, and over-the-counter (i.e., privately negotiated) derivatives such as forwards, swaps and options. Major players in the energy derivati

Envy ratio, in finance, refers to the ratio of the price paid by investors to the price paid by the management team for their respective shares of equity.

EOS.IO is a blockchain protocol based on the cryptocurrency EOS. The smart contract platform claims to eliminate transaction fees and also conduct millions of transactions per second. It was developed by the private company Block.one and launched in 2017. The platform was later released as open-source software.

An equity co-investment (or co-investment) is a minority investment, made directly into an operating company, alongside a financial sponsor or other private equity investor, in a leveraged buyout, recapitalization or growth capital transaction. In certain circumstances, venture capital firms may also seek co-investors.

In finance, an equity derivative is a class of derivatives whose value is at least partly derived from one or more underlying equity securities. Options and futures are by far the most common equity derivatives, however there are many other types of equity derivatives that are actively traded.

In finance and investing, the Home bias puzzle is the term given to describe the fact that individuals and institutions in most countries hold only modest amounts of foreign equity, and tend to strongly favor company stock from their home nation. This finding is regarded as puzzling, since ample evidence shows equity portfolios obtain substantial benefits from diversification into global

An equity swap is a financial derivative contract (a swap) where a set of future cash flows are agreed to be exchanged between two counterparties at set dates in the future. The two cash flows are usually referred to as "legs" of the swap; one of these "legs" is usually pegged to a floating rate such as LIBOR. This leg is also commonly referred to as the "floating leg". The other leg of

An equity-linked note (ELN) is a debt instrument, usually a bond issued by a financial institution such as an investment bank or a subsidiary of a commercial bank. ELNs are liabilities of the issuer, but the final payout to the investor is based on an unrelated company's stock price, a stock index or a group of stocks or stock indices. The underlying stocks typically have large market ca

Ettore Conti, Count of Verampio OML, OMRI, OCI (1871–1972, Milan, Kingdom of Italy) was an Italian senator, industrialist, and aristocrat.

Eugene Harvey Rotberg, (January 19, 1930 – October 6, 2025) was an American lawyer and international investment banker. He was known for his expertise in financial risk management, interest and exchange rates, financial market regulation, and the role of international development institutions.

A eurobond is an international bond that is denominated in a currency not native to the country where it is issued. They are also called external bonds. They are usually categorised according to the currency in which they are issued: eurodollar, euroyen, euroeuro and so on. The name became somewhat misleading with the advent of the euro currency in 1999; eurobonds were created in the 19

Euroclear, or the Euroclear Group, is a Belgium-based financial market infrastructure group that specialises in the central securities depository (CSD) segment. It traces its origins to the Euro-clear System developed in 1968 by Morgan Guaranty (a predecessor of JPMorgan Chase) in Brussels to settle trades on the then developing eurobond market. The service was rebranded Euroclear (witho

Euronext N.V. (short for European New Exchange Technology) is a European bourse that provides trading and post-trade services for a range of financial instruments. It is registered in Amsterdam but its operational headquarters are located in Paris. It operates major stock exchanges in eight countries: France (Euronext Paris), the Netherlands (Euronext Amsterdam), Belgium (Euronext Brusse

The European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) is an EU regulation aimed at reducing systemic counterparty and operational risk and thereby preventing future financial system collapses. Its focus is regulation of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories. It provides steer on reporting of derivative contracts, implementation of risk managemen

An exchange, bourse (), trading exchange or trading venue is an organized market where people can buy and sell financial instruments, such as tradable securities, commodities, foreign exchange and derivative contracts.

In finance, an exchange rate is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another currency. Currencies are most commonly national currencies, but may be sub-national as in the case of Hong Kong or supra-national as in the case of the euro.

In macroeconomics, a flexible exchange-rate system is a monetary system that allows the exchange rate to be determined by supply and demand.

An exchange-traded note (ETN) is a senior, unsecured, unsubordinated debt security issued by an underwriting bank or by a special-purpose entity. Similar to other debt securities, ETNs may have a maturity date and are backed by the credit of the issuer, though some ETNs may have a portfolio of assets given as a collateral.

The term exorbitant privilege refers to the benefits that the United States, as the world's supplier of safe assets, derives from its own currency (the US dollar) being the international reserve currency. These safe assets, primarily government debt, tend to be sold at higher prices than the debt of other governments. Exorbitant privilege enables the United States (and other states in a

The expected return (or expected gain) on a financial investment is the expected value of its return (of the profit on the investment). It is a measure of the center of the distribution of the random variable that is the return. It is calculated by using the following formula:

In finance, the expiration date of an option contract (represented by Greek letter tau, τ) is the last date on which the holder of the option may exercise it according to its terms. In the case of options with "automatic exercise", the net value of the option is credited to the long and debited to the short position holders.

A fat-finger error is a keyboard input error or mouse misclick that occurs from a simple input mistake, causing unwanted secondary behavior. In common parlance, it simply refers to a common typographical error made on a touchscreen or physical keyboard that occurs when the wrong selection is made, or multiple selections are made due to options or keyboard keys being too close together.

The Federal Department of Finance (FDF, German: Eidgenössisches Finanzdepartement, French: Département fédéral des finances, Italian: Dipartimento federale delle finanze, Romansh: ) is one of the seven departments of the Swiss federal government. The department is headquartered in Bern and headed by a member of the Swiss Federal Council, Switzerland's finance minister. Initially, in 1848

The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions (banks and credit unions) lend reserve balances to other depository institutions overnight on an uncollateralized basis. Reserve balances are amounts held at the Federal Reserve. Institutions with surplus balances in their accounts lend those balances to institutions in need of larger balances. The federal funds

The Federal Ministry of Finance (German: Bundesministerium der Finanzen, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsminɪsˌteːʁiʊm deːɐ̯ fiˈnantsn̩]; abbreviated BMF) is the cabinet-level finance ministry of Germany, with its seat at the Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus in Berlin and a secondary office in Bonn.

In September 2008, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that it would take over the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). Both government-sponsored enterprises, which finance home mortgages in the United States by issuing bonds, had become illiquid as the market for those bonds collapsed in the subp

Finance refers to the management, movement, investment, and raising of money.

The Finance Committee (Hebrew: ועדת הכספים) is a permanent Knesset committee which oversees finance issues of the State of Israel, including the drafting of legislation, supervision over related government ministries and the approval of their budgets. It is regarded as one of two most important Knesset committees (the other being the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee). Article 100(2)

Finance Watch is an independent European non-profit association that conducts research and advocacy on financial regulation. Finance Watch develops a public interest vision for financial reform and interacts with policymakers to bring about change. Based in Brussels, the organization focuses on financial regulation in the European Union.

A financial analyst is a professional undertaking financial analysis for external or internal clients as a core feature of the job. The role may specifically be titled securities analyst, research analyst, equity analyst, investment analyst, or ratings analyst. The job title is a broad one:

A financial centre (financial center in American English) or financial hub is a location with a significant concentration of commerce in financial services.

Financial cryptography is the use of cryptography in applications in which financial loss could result from subversion of the message system. Financial cryptography is distinguished from traditional cryptography in that for most of recorded history, cryptography has been used almost entirely for military and diplomatic purposes.

A financial data vendor provides market data to financial firms, traders, and investors. The data distributed is collected from sources such as stock exchange feeds, brokers and dealer desks or regulatory filings (e.g. an SEC filing).

Financial econometrics is the application of statistical methods to financial data. Financial econometrics is a branch of financial economics, in the field of economics. Areas of study include capital markets, financial institutions, corporate finance and corporate governance. Topics often revolve around asset valuation of individual stocks, bonds, derivatives, currencies and other fina

Financial fragility is the vulnerability of a financial system to a financial crisis. Franklin Allen and Douglas Gale define financial fragility as the degree to which "...small shocks have disproportionately large effects." Roger Lagunoff and Stacey Schreft write, "In macroeconomics, the term "financial fragility" is used...to refer to a financial system's susceptibility to large-scale

The Financial Guard (Romanian: Garda Financiară) was the control agency, subordinated to the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF), with a mandate to control the financial, economic and customs domains to prevent and sanction the tax evasion and tax-related fraud according to the legislation in effect. The institution was headed by a civil servant, having the mandate of the C

Financial inclusion is the availability and equality of opportunities to access financial services. It refers to processes by which individuals and businesses can access appropriate, affordable, and timely financial products and services—which include banking, loan, equity, and insurance products. It provides paths to enhance inclusiveness in economic growth by enabling the unbanked po

The Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol is an electronic communications protocol initiated in 1992 for international real-time exchange of information related to securities transactions and markets. With trillions of dollars traded annually on the NASDAQ alone, financial service entities are employing direct market access (DMA) to increase their speed to financial markets. Mana

Financial innovation is the act of creating new financial instruments as well as new financial technologies, institutions, and markets. Recent financial innovations include hedge funds, private equity, weather derivatives, retail-structured products, exchange-traded funds, multi-family offices, and Islamic bonds (Sukuk). The shadow banking system has spawned an array of financial innovat

A financial instrument is a monetary contract between parties. They can be created, traded, modified and settled. They can be cash (currency), evidence of an ownership interest in an entity or a contractual right to receive or deliver in the form of currency (forex); debt (bonds, loans); equity (shares); or derivatives (options, futures, forwards).

Financial law is the law and regulation of the commercial banking, capital markets, insurance, derivatives and investment management sectors. Understanding financial law is crucial to appreciating the creation and formation of banking and financial regulation, as well as the legal framework for finance generally.

A financial market is a marketplace where the pricing and trade of securities, commodities, currency, derivatives, or other financial products takes place. The term may refer to a specific stock or commodity exchange, or to the general process by which relevant economic activity is organized and carried out.

There are several concepts of efficiency for a financial market. The most widely discussed is informational or price efficiency, which is a measure of how quickly and completely the price of a single asset reflects available information about the asset's value. Other concepts include functional/operational efficiency, which is inversely related to the costs that investors bear for maki

Financial market infrastructure refers to systems and entities involved in clearing, settlement, and the recording of payments, securities, derivatives, and other financial transactions. Depending on context, financial market infrastructure may refer to the category in general, or to individual companies or entities (thus also used in plural: financial market infrastructures).

There are two basic financial market participant distinctions, investors versus speculators and institutional versus retail. Action in financial markets by central banks is usually regarded as intervention rather than participation.

A financial network is a concept describing any collection of financial entities (such as payment card companies, firms, banks and financial transaction processing) and the links between them, ideally through direct transactions or the ability to mediate a transaction. A common example of a financial network link is security holdings (e.g. stock of publicly traded companies), where a fir

A financial planner or personal financial planner is a qualified financial advisor. Practicing in full service personal finance, they advise clients on investments, insurance, tax, retirement and estate planning.

Financial regulation is a broad set of policies that apply to the financial sector in most jurisdictions, justified by two main features of finance: systemic risk, which implies that the failure of financial firms involves public interest considerations; and information asymmetry, which justifies curbs on freedom of contract in selected areas of financial services, particularly those tha

Financial repression refers to government implementation of policies to channel domestic funds to the public sector that in a deregulated market environment would go elsewhere. These policies are used to reduce the government's debt-to-GDP ratio.

The financial result is the difference between earnings before interest and taxes and earnings before taxes. It is determined by the earning or the loss which results from financial affairs.

Financial risk is any of various types of risk associated with financing, including financial transactions that include company loans in risk of default. Often it is understood to include only downside risk, meaning the potential for financial loss and uncertainty about its extent.

Financial sector development in developing countries and emerging markets is part of the private sector development strategy to stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty.