Industry WIKI

Square is a point-of-sale system for sellers with physical or online stores. Launched in 2009 by Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.), it enables merchants to accept card payments and manage business operations. As of 2024, Square is the U.S. market leader in point-of-sale systems, serving 4 million sellers and processing $228bn annually.

Squarepoint Capital ("Squarepoint") is a global investment management firm headquartered in New York City & London. The firm is known for its quantitative finance approach to investing. Squarepoint has additional offices in Bangalore, Boston, Dubai, Geneva, Hong Kong, Houston, Jersey, London, Madrid, Montreal, New York, Paris, Singapore, and Zug.

A squeeze-out or squeezeout, sometimes synonymous with freeze-out, is the compulsory sale of the shares of minority shareholders of a joint-stock company for which they receive a fair cash compensation.

Sri Lanka has been involved with the World Bank since its initial entrance into the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) on August 29, 1950. Currently, Sri Lanka's quota in the IBERT is approximately 515.4 million dollars, thus allotting 5,846 votes or 0.25% of the total votes in the institution. Sri Lanka later became a member of the other institutions in the wor

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

Stagflation is the combination of high inflation, stagnant economic growth, and elevated unemployment. The term stagflation, a portmanteau of "stagnation" and "inflation", was popularized and probably coined by British politician Iain Macleod in the 1960s, during a period of economic distress in the United Kingdom. It gained broader recognition in the 1970s after a series of global econo

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

The standardized approach for counterparty credit risk (SA-CCR) is the capital requirement framework under Basel III addressing counterparty risk for derivative trades.

The term standardized approach (or standardised approach) refers to a set of credit risk measurement techniques proposed under Basel II, which sets capital adequacy rules for banking institutions.

In the context of operational risk, the standardized approach or standardised approach is a set of operational risk measurement techniques proposed under Basel II capital adequacy rules for banking institutions.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance (SCOF) is a department related standing committee (DRSC) constituted by the Parliament of India comprising selected members of parliament for the purpose of legislative oversight on the policies and decision making of the following four ministries:

Stanisław Mieczysław Gebhardt (13 July 1928 – 27 February 2025) was a Polish resistance fighter, economist, émigré political activist, international social entrepreneur and veteran member of the Christian democratic movement. After his return to Poland after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, he was associated with centre-right politics and regarded as a political historian. Gebhardt received

Stanley Fischer (Hebrew: סטנלי פישר; October 15, 1943 – May 31, 2025) was an American and Israeli economist who served as the 20th vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2017. Fischer previously served as the 8th governor of the Bank of Israel from 2005 to 2013. Born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), he held dual citizenship in Israel and the United States. He previously served

Star Micronics Co., Ltd. (スター精密株式会社, Sutā Seimitsu Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese multinational electronic components and printer manufacturing company headquartered in Shizuoka, Japan. It was founded in 1947 as a precision processor of miniature components, later expanding into automatic lathes, printers, micro audio components, and other fields.

StarkWare Industries is an Israeli software company that specializes in cryptography. It develops zero-knowledge proof technology that compresses information to address the scalability problem of the blockchain, and works on the Ethereum platform.

StartUp is an American crime drama television series created by Ben Ketai that premiered on September 6, 2016 on Crackle. It stars Adam Brody, Martin Freeman, Edi Gathegi, Otmara Marrero, Ron Perlman, Mira Sorvino, and Addison Timlin. On November 15, 2017, it was renewed for a third season which was released on November 1, 2018.

A startup or start-up is a company or project typically undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder. At the early stages, startups face signifi

Stash Financial, Inc., or Stash, is an American financial technology and financial services company based in New York, NY. The company operates both a web platform and mobile apps, allowing users to incrementally invest small amounts, commonly known as micro-investing. It also provides robo advice.

In Australia and the United States, a state bank in a federated state is usually a financial institution that is chartered by the government of that state, as opposed to one regulated at the federal or national level.

The State Bank Archives and Museum is an initiative to document and preserve the history of banking in the Indian subcontinent. The archive and museum opened on 13 May 2007 in the State Bank of India (SBI) headquarters in Kolkata.

The State Finance Accountability Committee (Indonesian: Badan Akuntabilitas Keuangan Negara (BAKN)) is an auditory body of the legislative branch in Indonesia's political system and was established under Paragraph 6 of Indonesian Law No.27 2009 enacted on 29 August 2009.

In finance, statistical arbitrage (Stat Arb or StatArb) is a class of short-term financial trading strategies that employ mean reversion models involving broadly diversified portfolios of securities (hundreds to thousands) held for short periods of time (generally seconds to days). These strategies are supported by substantial mathematical, computational, and trading platforms.

Statistical finance is the application of econophysics to financial markets. Instead of the normative roots of finance, it uses a positivist framework. It includes exemplars from statistical physics with an emphasis on emergent or collective properties of financial markets. Empirically observed stylized facts are the starting point for this approach to understanding financial markets.

The Steamboat Inspection Service was a United States agency created in 1871 to safeguard lives and property at sea. It merged with the Bureau of Navigation in 1932 to form the Bureau of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection, which in 1936 was reorganized into the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation. The Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation's responsibilities were transferred t

Stellar, or Stellar Lumens (symbol: XLM), is a cryptocurrency protocol which allows transactions between any pair of currencies.

In macroeconomics, sterilization is action taken by a country's central bank to counter the effects on the money supply caused by a balance of payments surplus or deficit.

The sterling area (or sterling bloc, legally scheduled territories) was a group of countries that either adopted or pegged their currencies to the pound sterling.

The Stern family is a Jewish banking family originally from Frankfurt. It traces back to Samuel Hayum Stern (1760–1819), who in the 1780s became a wine merchant in Frankfurt. In 1805, his son, Jacob Samuel Heyum Stern, converted the family business into a bank called Jacob S.H. Stern & Co., which became one of the most prominent banking institutions in Germany.

The STET-CORE system is a French interbank automated clearing house. STET SA, whose name refers to Systèmes Technologiques d'Echange et de Traitement (lit. 'Exchange and Processing Technological Systems'), is the system's operating company, based in Paris La Défense. CORE, whose name refers to COmpensation REtail (compensation being French for clearing), is the main platform developed by

Steven J. Baum, P.C., was a law firm headquartered in Amherst, New York, United States. It was founded as Marvin R. Baum, P.C. in 1972, and remained under that name until Marvin Baum's death in 1999, after which his son Steven inherited the business and renamed it after himself. Its practice was primarily in real estate law, particularly in representing lenders and servicers in residenti

The Steyler Bank is a German ethical-ecological bank using Christian finance principles that following the Steyler Missionare. It was founded in 1964 in Sankt Augustin, where it still has its headquarters, and creates funds from an ethical point of view. The Steyler Bank also has a branch in Austria.

The Stiglitz Report: Reforming the International Monetary and Financial Systems in the Wake of the Global Crisis is a book documenting the necessary changes and reforms of the international financial institutions during the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession. Written by a commission chaired by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, the report frames the crisis as part of a

Stochastic calculus is a branch of mathematics that operates on stochastic processes. It allows a consistent theory of integration to be defined for integrals of stochastic processes with respect to stochastic processes. This field was created and started by the Japanese mathematician Kiyosi Itô during World War II.

A stochastic differential equation (SDE) is a differential equation in which one or more of the terms is a stochastic process, resulting in a solution which is also a stochastic process. SDEs have many applications throughout pure mathematics and are used to model various behaviours of stochastic models such as prices of listed company shares, random growth models or physical systems tha

In probability theory, stochastic drift is the change of the average value of a stochastic (random) process. A related concept is the drift rate, which is the rate at which the average changes. For example, a process that counts the number of heads in a series of

Stochastic oscillator is a momentum indicator within technical analysis that uses support and resistance levels as an oscillator. George Lane developed this indicator in the late 1950s. The term stochastic refers to the point of a current price in relation to its price range over a period of time. This method attempts to predict price turning points by comparing the closing price of a

In mathematics, stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) are a generalization of partial differential equations via random force terms and coefficients, in the same way ordinary stochastic differential equations generalize ordinary differential equations.

In statistics, stochastic volatility models are those in which the variance of a stochastic process is itself randomly distributed. They are used in the field of mathematical finance to evaluate derivative securities, such as options. The name derives from the models' treatment of the underlying security's volatility as a random process, governed by state variables such as the price leve

Stochastic Volatility Jump Models (SVJ models) are a class of mathematical models in quantitative finance that combine stochastic volatility dynamics with discontinuous jumps in asset prices. These models aim to more accurately reflect the empirical characteristics of financial markets, particularly those that deviate from the assumptions of classical models such as the Black–Scholes mod

Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares. This typically entitles the shareholder (stockholder) to that fraction of the company's earnings, proceeds from liquidat

In corporate law, a stock certificate (also known as certificate of stock or share certificate) is a legal document that certifies the legal interest (a bundle of several legal rights) of ownership of a specific number of shares (or, under Article 8 of the Uniform Commercial Code in the United States, a securities entitlement or pro rata share of a fungible bulk) or stock in a corporatio

Stock dilution, also known as equity dilution, is the decrease in existing shareholders' ownership percentage of a company as a result of the company issuing new equity. New equity increases the total shares outstanding which has a dilutive effect on the ownership percentage of existing shareholders. This increase in the number of shares outstanding can result from a primary market off

A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for the issue and redemption of such securities and instruments and capital events including the payment of income and dividends. Securities traded on a stock

A stock fund, or equity fund, is a fund that invests in stocks, also called equity securities. Stock funds can be contrasted with bond funds and money funds. Fund assets are typically mainly in stock, with some amount of cash, which is generally quite small, as opposed to bonds, notes, or other securities. This may be a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund. The objective of an equity fun

A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called as shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include securities listed on a public stock exchange as well as stock that is only traded privately, such as shares of private companies that are sold to investors through equity crowdfunding platforms. Invest

A stock market bubble is a type of economic bubble taking place in stock markets when market participants drive stock prices above their value in relation to some system of stock valuation.

Since the beginning of the Bombay stock exchange, stock markets in India, particularly the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India have seen a number of booms as well as crashes.

Stock market data systems communicate market data—information about securities and stock trades—from stock exchanges to stockbrokers and stock traders.

Stock market equivalence is granted by the European Union to those countries whose stock markets are deemed to be 'equivalent' to those of the EU countries. On 3 January 2018, the EU implemented the "Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II" (colloquially known as "MiFID II") which required all European investment firms & traders to trade the shares of a company listed in the EU on

In finance, a stock market index or stock index is an index that measures the performance of a stock market, or of a subset of a stock market. It helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calculate market performance.

In finance, a stock market index future is a cash-settled futures contract on the value of a particular stock market index. The turnover for the global market in exchange-traded equity index futures is notionally valued, for 2008, by the Bank for International Settlements at US$130 trillion.

Stock market prediction is the act of trying to determine the future value of a company stock or other financial instrument traded on an exchange. The successful prediction of a stock's future price could yield significant profit. The efficient market hypothesis suggests that stock prices reflect all currently available information and any price changes that are not based on newly reveal

A stock market simulator is computer software that reproduces behavior and features of a stock market, so that a user may practice trading stocks without financial risk. Paper trading, sometimes also called "virtual stock trading", is a simulated trading process in which would-be investors can practice investing without committing money.

A stock split or stock divide increases the number of shares in a company. For example, after a 2-for-1 split, each investor will own double the number of shares, and each share will be worth half as much. A stock split causes a decrease of market price of individual shares, but does not change the total market capitalization of the company: stock dilution does not occur.

A stock trader or equity trader or share trader, also called a stock investor, is a person or company involved in trading stocks and attempting to profit from the purchase and sale of those securities. Stock traders may be an investor, agent, hedger, arbitrageur, speculator, or stockbroker. Such equity trading in large publicly traded companies may be through a stock exchange. Stock shar

Stock valuation is the method of calculating theoretical values of companies and their stocks. The main use of these methods is to predict future market prices, or more generally, potential market prices, and thus to profit from price movement – stocks that are judged undervalued (with respect to their theoretical value) are bought, while stocks that are judged overvalued are sold, in th

A stockbroker is an individual or company that buys and sells stocks and other investments for a financial market participant in return for a commission, markup, or fee. In most countries they are regulated as a broker or broker-dealer and may need to hold a relevant license and may be a member of a stock exchange. They generally act as a financial adviser and investment manager. In thi

The Stockholm congestion tax (Swedish: Trängselskatt i Stockholm), also referred to as the Stockholm congestion charge, is a congestion pricing system implemented as a tax levied on most vehicles entering and exiting central Stockholm, Sweden. The congestion tax was implemented on a permanent basis on 1 August 2007, after a seven-month trial period between 3 January 2006 and 31 July 200

The Great Stop of the Exchequer or Stop of the Exchequer was a repudiation of state debt that occurred in England in 1672 under the reign of Charles II of England.

A store of value is any commodity or asset that would normally retain purchasing power into the future and is the function of the asset that can be saved, retrieved and exchanged at a later time, and be predictably useful when retrieved.

A stored-value card (SVC) or cash card is a payment card with a monetary value stored on the card itself, not in an external account maintained by a financial institution. This means no network access is required by the payment collection terminals as funds can be withdrawn and deposited straight from the card. Like cash, payment cards can be used anonymously as the person holding the ca

In finance, a straddle strategy involves two transactions in options on the same underlying, with opposite positions. One holds long risk, the other short. As a result, it involves the purchase or sale of particular option derivatives that allow the holder to profit based on how much the price of the underlying security moves, regardless of the direction of price movement.

Strahan, Paul & Bates was a London private banking house founded in the 17th century and with a reputation for respectability. The bank failed in 1855 with liabilities eventually estimated at £750,000 (equivalent to £70,000,000 in 2025). The subsequent bankruptcy proceedings revealed that customers' securities had been sold or otherwise disposed of by the partners and the proceeds had be

In finance, a strangle is an options strategy involving the purchase or sale of two options, allowing the holder to profit based on how much the price of the underlying security moves, with a neutral exposure to the direction of price movement. A strangle consists of one call and one put with the same expiry and underlying but different strike prices. Typically the call has a higher stri

A strategic default is the decision by a borrower to stop making payments (i.e., to default) on a debt, despite having the financial ability to make the payments.

Strategic financial management is the study of finance with a long term view considering the strategic goals of the enterprise. Financial management is sometimes referred to as "Strategic Financial Management" to give it an increased frame of reference.

The Strategic Investment Fund of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (French: Fonds d'investissement stratégique de la République démocratique du Congo; FIS-RDC) is a state-owned strategic investment fund established in 2025 by the Ministry of Finance to mobilize financing, manage state assets, and support long-term economic development.

Streamline refinancing is a mortgage refinancing process in the United States for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgages that reuses the original loan's paperwork allowing quicker refinancing. The program was introduced by the FHA as a way to speed up the home refinancing process. By reusing the original loan's paperwork, the process to refinance a home was reduced from a few mo

The phrase street name securities or "nominee name securities" is used in the United States to refer to securities of companies which are held electronically in the account of a stockbroker or bank or custodian, similar to a bank account. The entity whose name is recorded as the legal owner of the securities is known as the "nominee owner," and that entity has ownership rights in the sec

In finance, a stress test is an analysis or simulation designed to determine the ability of a given financial instrument or financial institution to deal with an economic crisis. Instead of doing financial projection on a "best estimate" basis, a company or its regulators may do stress testing where they look at how robust a financial instrument is in certain crashes, a form of scenario

In finance, the strike price (or exercise price) of an option is a fixed price at which the owner of the option can buy (in the case of a call), or sell (in the case of a put), the underlying security or commodity. The strike price may be set by reference to the spot price, which is the market price of the underlying security or commodity on the day an option is taken out. Alternatively,

Stripe, LLC is an Irish-American multinational financial services and software as a service (SaaS) company dual-headquartered in South San Francisco, California, United States, and Dublin, Ireland. The company primarily offers payment-processing software and application programming interfaces for e-commerce websites and mobile applications.

Strong dollar policy is United States economic policy based on the assumption that a "strong" exchange rate of the United States dollar (meaning it takes fewer dollars to purchase the same amount of another currency) is in the interests of the United States. In 1971, Treasury Secretary John Connally famously remarked how the US dollar was "our currency, but your problem," referring to ho

Structured finance is a sector of finance and financial law concerned with managing leverage and risk. Strategies may involve off-balance-sheet accounting or the use of financial instruments to manage credit risk and facilitate capital flows.

Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS) is a secure messaging standard developed to serve as a platform for intra-bank and inter-bank applications. It is an Indian standard similar to SWIFT which is the international messaging system used for financial messaging globally.

A structured investment vehicle (SIV) is a non-bank financial institution established to earn a credit spread between the longer-term assets held in its portfolio and the shorter-term liabilities it issues. They are simple credit spread lenders, frequently "lending" by investing in securitizations, but also by investing in corporate bonds and funding by issuing commercial paper and medi

A structured product, also known as a market-linked investment, is a pre-packaged structured finance investment strategy based on a single security, a basket of securities, options, indices, commodities, debt issuance or foreign currencies, and to a lesser extent, derivatives.

A structured settlement is a negotiated financial or insurance arrangement through which a claimant agrees to resolve a personal injury tort claim by receiving part or all of a settlement in the form of periodic payments on an agreed schedule, rather than as a lump sum. As part of the negotiations, a structured settlement may be offered by the defendant or requested by the plaintiff. Ult

A structured settlement factoring transaction means a transfer of structured settlement payment rights (including portions of structured settlement payments) made for consideration by means of sale, assignment, pledge, or other form of encumbrance or alienation for consideration. In order for such transfer to be approved, the transfer must comply with Internal Revenue Code section 5891 a

Structuring, also known as smurfing in banking jargon, is the practice of executing financial transactions such as making bank deposits in a specific pattern, calculated to avoid triggering financial institutions to file reports required by law, such as the United States' Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Internal Revenue Code section 6050I (relating to the requirement to file Form 8300). Struc

Student debt refers to the debt incurred by an individual to pay for education-related expenses. This debt is most commonly assumed to pay for tertiary education, such as university.

The Student Initiative Rahel (German: Rahel-Bildungsprojekt) was a project of the Institute for World Church and Mission (IWM, German: Institut für Weltkirche und Mission), which is part of the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen. The nonprofit project started in 2010 and collected money until 2017, financing scholarships for disadvantaged

A student loan is a type of loan designed to help students pay for tertiary education and the associated fees, such as tuition, books and supplies, and living expenses. It may differ from other types of loans in the fact that the interest rate may be substantially lower and the repayment schedule may be deferred while the student is still in school. It also differs in many countries in t

Style drift occurs when a mutual fund's actual and declared investment style differs.

Style investing is an investment approach in which securities are grouped into categories, and portfolio allocation is based on selection among "styles" rather than among individual securities.

Subhash Chandra–LIC Housing Finance loan fraud case is a major financial scandal in India involving the diversion of bank loans and money laundering by Subhash Chandra, the promoter of Essel Group.

In finance, subordinated debt (also known as subordinated loan, subordinated bond, subordinated debenture or junior debt) is debt which ranks after other debts if a company falls into liquidation or bankruptcy.

Subordination in banking and finance refers to the order of priorities in claims for ownership or interest in various assets.

In finance, subprime lending (also referred to as near-prime, subpar, non-prime, and second-chance lending) is the provision of loans to people who may have difficulty maintaining the repayment schedule.

The American subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010, contributing to the 2008 financial crisis. It led to a severe economic recession, with millions becoming unemployed and many businesses going bankrupt. The U.S. government intervened with a series of measures to stabilize the financial system, including the Troubled Asset Relie

The economy of Iran includes a lot of subsidies. Food items, such as flour and cooking oil, are subsidized, along with fuels such as gasoline. However cutting subsidies can cause civil unrest.

Sucden (Sucres et Denrées) is a French-based commodity broker of soft commodities and other financial products headquartered in Paris. The firm started as a sugar broker and is now amongst the world leaders with a market share of around 15% in volume (as of 2016), or 9.5 million tonnes. It has offices around the world, including London and Hong Kong.

The SUCRE ([ˈsukɾe]; Spanish: Sistema Unitario de Compensación Regional, "Unified System for Regional Compensation") was a regional currency proposed for commercial exchanges between members of the regional trade bloc Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), which was created as an alternative to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). The SUCRE was intended to replace the

The suggestion box is used for collecting slips of paper with input from customers and patrons of a particular organization. Suggestion boxes may also exist internally, within an organization, such as means for garnering employee opinion.

Sukuk (Arabic: صكوك, romanized: ṣukūk; plural of Arabic: صك, romanized: ṣakk, lit. 'legal instrument, deed, cheque') is the Arabic name for financial certificates, also commonly referred to as "sharia compliant" bonds.

SumUp is a British financial technology company headquartered in London. SumUp’s primary product is an EMV card reader and a number of online payment and bank account system for merchants and businesses.

SunGard was an American multinational company based in Wayne, Pennsylvania, which provided software and services to education, financial services, and public sector organizations. It was formed in 1983 as a spin-off of the computer services division of Sun Oil Company.

SunPass is an electronic toll collection system within the state of Florida, United States. It was created in 1999 by the Florida Department of Transportation's (FDOT's) Office of Toll Operations, which operates as a division of Florida's Turnpike Enterprise (FTE). The system utilizes windshield-mounted RFID transponders manufactured by TransCore and lane equipment designed by companies

A super app or super-app (also known as an everything app) is a mobile or web application that can provide multiple services including payment and instant messaging services, effectively becoming an all-encompassing, self-contained, commerce and communication online platform that embraces many aspects of personal and commercial life. Notable examples of super apps include Tencent's WeCha

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