Industry WIKI

The United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) is the only legally binding international anti-corruption multilateral treaty. Negotiated by member states of the United Nations (UN) it was adopted by the UN General Assembly in October 2003 and entered into force in December 2005. The treaty recognises the importance of both preventive and punitive measures, addresses the cross-b

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC; French: Office des Nations unies contre la drogue et le crime) is a United Nations office that was established in 1997 as the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention by combining the United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) and the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division in the United Nations Office at Vien

In 2010, the United States implemented the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act; the law required financial firms around the world to report accounts held by US citizens to the Internal Revenue Service.

The United States Customs Service was a federal law enforcement agency of the U.S. federal government. Established on July 31, 1789, it collected import tariffs, performed other selected border security duties, as well as conducted criminal investigations.

In the United States, the debt ceiling is a law limiting the total amount of money the federal government can borrow. Since 2025, the debt ceiling is $41.1 trillion after being raised by $5 trillion through the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA). The debt ceiling is expected to breach by 2027. The U.S. government has borrowed to finance its budget since 2002, running a structural budge

The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current U.S. government departments. The treasury executes currency circulation in the domestic fiscal system, collects all federal taxes through the Internal Revenue Service, manages U.S. government debt, licenses and supervises banks and

The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States (U.S.) and several other countries. The U.S. Coinage Act of 1792 established the dollar as the base unit, with each dollar divided into 100 cents (symbol: ¢). U.S. banknotes are issued in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, popularly called greenbacks due to their predominantly green col

The United States House Committee on Financial Services, also referred to as the House Banking Committee and previously known as the Committee on Banking and Currency, is the committee of the United States House of Representatives that oversees the entire financial services industry, including the securities, insurance, banking and housing industries. The Financial Services Committee als

In 2021, the United States imposed government sanctions on Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite security force, and six of its officials on charges of involvement in serious human rights violations in the country. Under the Magnitsky Act, it was first such case of sanctions by the United States government on the South Asian country.

United States Savings Bonds are debt securities issued by the United States Department of the Treasury to help pay for the U.S. government's borrowing needs. They are considered one of the safest investments because they are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. The savings bonds are nonmarketable treasury securities issued to the public, which means they c

The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security. It is tasked with conducting criminal investigations and providing protection to American political leaders, their families, and visiting heads of state or government.

The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters pertaining to economic and fiscal policy. The secretary is, by custom, a member of the

Securities regulation in the United States is the field of U.S. law that covers transactions and other dealings with securities. The term is usually understood to include both federal and state-level regulation by governmental regulatory agencies, but sometimes may also encompass listing requirements of exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange and rules of self-regulatory organizations

The United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (formerly the Committee on Banking and Currency), also known as the Senate Banking Committee, has jurisdiction over matters related to banks and banking, price controls, deposit insurance, export promotion and controls, federal monetary policy, financial aid to commerce and industry, issuance of redemption of notes

The United States Senate Committee on Finance (or, less formally, Senate Finance Committee) is a standing committee of the United States Senate. The committee concerns itself with matters relating to taxation and other revenue measures generally, and those relating to the insular possessions; bonded debt of the United States; customs, collection districts, and ports of entry and delivery

United States Treasury securities, also called Treasuries or Treasurys, are government debt instruments issued by the United States Department of the Treasury to finance government spending as a supplement to taxation. Since 2012, the U.S. government debt has been managed by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, succeeding the Bureau of the Public Debt.

In United States v. Banki, 685 F.3d 99 (2nd Cir. 2011) the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction of Mahmoud Reza Banki. Banki had been convicted of multiple crimes related to allegedly conspiring to violate United States sanctions against Iran by transferring large amounts of money — totaling some $3.4 million — from Iran to the United States.

United States v. Gratkowski, 964 F.3d 307 (5th Cir. 2020), was a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit involving the Fourth Amendment implications of Bitcoin transactions.

United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727 (1980), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court reversed a district court's suppression of evidence in the criminal prosecution of an Ohio businessman charged with tax evasion. The case concerned both issues of criminal procedure and the application of the exclusionary rule derived from the Fourth Amendment. By a 6–3 margin the Court

United Stock Exchange of India Limited, also known as the United Stock Exchange (USE), is an Indian government owned stock exchange. It is the 4th pan-India exchange launched for trading financial instruments in India. USE represents the commitment of 21 Indian public sector banks, private banks, international banks and corporate houses to build an institution of repute. Mr. Gaurav Arora

Unity Trust Bank plc provides specialist business banking services to trade unions, charities and other organisations that operate in the not-for-profit sector in the United Kingdom and, since 2015, its remit has expanded to include profit-with-purpose businesses. Founded in 1984, head office is located at Four Brindleyplace, Birmingham.

A universal bank is a type of bank which participates in many kinds of banking activities and is both a commercial bank and an investment bank as well as providing other financial services such as insurance. These are also called full-service financial firms, although there can also be full-service investment banks which provide wealth and asset management, trading, underwriting, researc

In finance, unsecured debt refers to any type of debt or general obligation that is not protected by a guarantor, or collateralized by a lien on specific assets of the borrower in the case of a bankruptcy or liquidation or failure to meet the terms for repayment. Unsecured debts are sometimes called signature debt or personal loans. These differ from secured debt such as a mortgage, whic

In cryptocurrencies, an unspent transaction output (UTXO, often capitalized as UTxO) is a distinctive element in a subset of digital currency models. A UTXO represents a certain amount of cryptocurrency that has been authorized by a sender and is available to be spent by a recipient. The utilization of UTXOs in transaction processes is a key feature of many cryptocurrencies, but it prima

Upbit is a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2017. It is operated by Dunamu, which is one of the highest-valued startups in South Korea.

An upfront is a gathering at the start of important advertising sales periods, held by network and streaming executives and attended by major advertisers and the media. Where once the Upfronts were all about the television industry, it has expanded to include streaming platforms. It is so named because of its main purpose, to allow marketers to buy television commercial airtime "up front

The uptick rule is a trading restriction that states that short selling a stock is allowed only on an uptick. For the rule to be satisfied, the short must be either at a price above the last traded price of the security, or at the last traded price when the most recent movement between traded prices was upward (i.e. the security has traded below the last-traded price more recently than a

The uranium market, like all commodity markets, has a history of volatility, moving with the standard forces of supply and demand as well as geopolitical pressures. It has also evolved particularities of its own in response to the unique nature and use of uranium.

In computing, Urbit is a decentralized personal server platform based on functional programming in a peer-to-peer network.

The international currency code for the US dollar is USD. This article covers its definition, mechanisms, verification methods, and common misconceptions.

USD1 is a US dollar stablecoin associated with the World Liberty Financial brand. This article introduces its positioning, mechanism, verification checklist, and common misconceptions.

USDC (USD Coin) is a cryptocurrency stablecoin issued by Circle Internet Group. It is pegged to the United States dollar, and is distinct from a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

USDC is a US dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Circle. This article introduces its positioning, mechanism, usage checklist, and common misconceptions.

USDe is the synthetic dollar asset of the Ethena protocol. This article covers its positioning, mechanism, usage checklist, and common misconceptions.

USDS is the stablecoin of the Sky protocol and is closely related to the evolution of DAI. This article covers its positioning, mechanism, usage checklist, and common misconceptions.

USDT is a US dollar-denominated stablecoin issued by Tether, designed to maintain a close value relationship with the US dollar. This article introduces its positioning, mechanism, verification checklist, and common misconceptions.

USI Tech Limited (also known as United Software Intelligence, or stylised as USI-TECH) was a Dubai-based cryptocurrency and forex platform trading provider, suspected to be a high-yield investment program and a Ponzi scheme. Prior to going offline with its users' funds, USI-Tech moved its website from a .com top-level domain, to a .io domain, while also appearing on a number of mirror do

Amal Uthum Herat (15 September 1957 – 23 October 2009) born in Colombo, Sri Lanka was Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and Alternate Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund.

In finance, valuation is the process of determining the value of a (potential) investment, asset, or security.

In finance, a price (premium) is paid or received for purchasing or selling options.

The Valuation Office Agency was an executive agency of His Majesty's Revenue and Customs until 31 March 2026, at which time it was abolished - scrapped in the Government's press release -with its functions subsumed into HMRC. The terms "Valuation Office(r)" (VO) are still widely used for its functions and staff, although it is no longer an "Agency".

Valuation risk is the risk that an entity suffers a loss when trading an asset or a liability due to a difference between the accounting value and the price effectively obtained in the trade.

Value added is a term in economics for calculating the difference between market value of a product or service, and the sum value of its constituents. It is relatively expressed by the supply-demand curve for specific units of sale. Value added is distinguished from the accounting term added value which measures only the financial profits earned upon transformational processes for specif

Value at risk (VaR) is a measure of the risk of loss of investment/capital. It estimates how much a set of investments might lose (with a given probability), given normal market conditions, in a set time period such as a day. VaR is typically used by firms and regulators in the financial industry to gauge the amount of assets needed to cover possible losses.

Value averaging (VA), also known as dollar value averaging (DVA), is a technique for adding to an investment portfolio that is controversially claimed to provide a greater return than other methods such as dollar cost averaging. With the method, investors add to (or withdraw from) their portfolios in such a way that the portfolio balance reaches a predetermined monthly or quarterly targe

Value investing is an investment paradigm that involves buying securities that appear underpriced by some form of fundamental analysis. Modern value investing derives from the investment philosophy taught by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd at Columbia Business School starting in 1928 and subsequently developed in their 1934 text Security Analysis.

Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, commonly referred to as Vancity, is a member-owned financial co-operative headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. By asset size, Vancity is the largest community credit union in Canada as of 2019, with CA$28.2 billion in assets plus assets under administration, 60 branches and more than 543,000 members.

The Vanna–Volga method is a mathematical tool used in finance. It is a technique for pricing first-generation exotic options in foreign exchange market (FX) derivatives.

A variable interest entity (VIE) is a legal structure defined by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) for situations where control over a legal entity may be demonstrated through means other than voting rights. A public company with a financial interest in such entities may be subject to certain financial reporting requirements.

A variance swap is an over-the-counter financial derivative that allows one to speculate on or hedge risks associated with the magnitude of movement, i.e. volatility, of some underlying product, like an exchange rate, interest rate, or stock index.

Varo Bank is an American neobank headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Launched in 2017, Varo was the first neobank to receive a national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

In finance, the Vasicek model is a mathematical model describing the evolution of interest rates. It is a type of one-factor short-rate model as it describes interest rate movements as driven by only one source of market risk. The model can be used in the valuation of interest rate derivatives, and has also been adapted for credit markets. It was introduced in 1977 by Oldřich Vašíček, an

VAT Audit, Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (Bengali: ভ্যাট অডিট, গোয়েন্দা ও তদন্ত অধিদপ্তর) is a specialized intelligence agency of the government of Bangladesh under the National Board of Revenue responsible for investigating Value Added Tax fraud. Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate and Central Intelligence Cell are the sister agencies of the directorate.

The velocity of money measures how many times one unit of currency is used to purchase goods and services within a given time period. In other words, it represents how many times per period money changes hands, or circulates to other owners in return for valuable goods and services. The concept relates the size of economic activity to a given money supply. The velocity of money is one of

The VEM (Acronym of Vale eletrônico Metropolitano, Electronic Metropolitan Ticket) is a Smart card system used in bus, train and metro of the metropolitan area of Recife, Brazil.

Vend is cloud-based point-of-sale and retail management software company, based in Auckland, New Zealand. The company was founded in 2010 by Vaughan Rowsell. It was acquired by the Canadian software company Lightspeed Commerce in 2021.

Vendor finance is a form of lending in which a vendor, instead of a bank or financial institution, lends money to be used by the borrower to buy the vendor's products or property. Vendor finance is usually in the form of deferred loans from, or shares subscribed by, the vendor. The vendor often takes shares in the borrowing company. This category of finance is generally used where the ve

The 1994 banking crisis occurred in Venezuela when a number of the banks of Venezuela were taken over by the government. The first to fail, in January 1994, was Banco Latino, the country's second-largest bank ($1.3 billion bailout). Later, two banks accounting for 18% of total deposits (Banco Consolidado and Banco de Venezuela) also failed. The crisis led President Rafael Caldera to susp

The 2009–2010 banking crisis in Venezuela occurred when the government took control of several banks following revelations that institutions owned by supporters of Hugo Chavez supporters were in financial trouble after engaging in questionable business practices. Some were seriously undercapitalized, others were apparently lending large sums of money to top executives, and at least one f

Venmo is an American mobile payment service founded in 2009 and owned by PayPal since 2013. Venmo is aimed at users who wish to split their bills or pay a business. Account holders can transfer funds to others via a mobile phone app. Account holders must be residents of the United States. Venmo also operates as a small social network, as users can observe other users' public transactions

Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equit

Venture capital in Israel refers to the financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies based in Israel. The country's venture capital industry was born in the mid-1980s and has rapidly developed. Israel currently has more than 276 active venture capital funds, of which 71 are international VCs with Israeli offices. Israel's venture capital

Venture capital is a segment of the economy of Poland where private equity finances early-stage high-risk companies, with the potential for fast growth. As of March 2019, there is a total of 130 active VC firms in Poland, including local offices of international VC firms, and VC firms with mainly Polish management teams. Between 2009 and 2019, these entities have invested locally in over

Venture capital in the Czech Republic refers to activity by private equity investors who finance companies in early stages of development in exchange for an ownership stake. The market's origins date to the early 1990s, when foreign funds began operating in the country following the transition to a market economy after the Velvet Revolution. From the mid-2010s, investment volumes grew, d

A venture capital trust or VCT is a tax efficient UK closed-end collective investment scheme designed to provide venture capital for small expanding companies, and income (in the form of dividend distributions) and/or capital gains for investors. VCTs are a form of publicly traded private equity, comparable to investment trusts in the UK or business development companies in the United St

Verifi, Inc. is an American financial technology company that provides dispute management and chargeback prevention tools for card-not-present payments. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Verifi offers products including Order Insight, Rapid Dispute Resolution (RDR), and the Cardholder Dispute Resolution Network (CDRN) to help merchants, issuers, and acquirers

Verifone, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in New York City, New York. Verifone provides technology for electronic payment transactions and value-added services at the point-of-sale. Verifone sells merchant-operated, consumer-facing and self-service payment systems to the financial, retail, hospitality, petroleum, government and healthcare industries. The compa

Versapay is a North American financial technology company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Versapay specializes in account receivable software and cash application for midsized businesses. Versapay products include digital invoicing and customer portal, collections management, B2B payment services, cash application, reporting and reconciliation, and ERP integrations. It was li

Vertrue Incorporated, headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American consumer services marketing company. The company again received an "F" from the Better Business Bureau for making unauthorized charges to its customers' credit cards. In 2007 it was acquired by a trio of investment firms, including Rho Ventures. In 2010, Vertrue and two of its subsidiaries were found guilty of d

Victor B. Niederhoffer (December 10, 1943 – August 4, 2026) was an American hedge fund manager, eight-time U.S. National Squash Champion (five times in singles) and four-time national paddleball champion (twice in singles), bestselling author, and statistician. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, after attending public schools there he graduated with a B.A. in Statistics and Economics

Video tolling (sometimes referred to as video billing, toll by plate, pay by mail, or pay by plate) is a form of electronic toll collection that uses video or still images of a vehicle's license plate to identify a vehicle liable to pay a road toll. The system dispenses with collection of road tolls using road-side cash or payment card methods, and may be used in conjunction with "all el

Vipps is a Norwegian mobile payment application designed for smartphones originally developed by DNB. Vipps was released May 30, 2015 and, having reached 1 million users by November 5, 2015, Vipps became Norway's largest payment application. Although Vipps was developed by DNB, customers of any Norwegian bank can use it. Vipps is a member of the European Mobile Payment Systems Associatio

Virág Blazsek (born February 2, 1980) is a Hungarian and U.S.-trained legal scholar known for her research on financial regulation, bank bailouts, and corporate insolvency.

In 2018, Iran recognized cryptocurrency mining as a legal industry in order to monitor and regulate the mining farms that were already operating. In December 2025 Iranian regime globally banned any and all transaction and transfer of cryptocurrency and along with that of in gold. In July 2018, President Hassan Rouhani's administration declared its intention of launching a national crypto

Virtual goods are non-physical objects and money purchased for use in online communities or online games. Digital goods, on the other hand, may be a broader category including digital books, music, and movies. Virtual goods are a subclass of intangible goods.

The Visible Embryo Project (VEP) is a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary research project originally created in the early 1990s as a collaboration between the Developmental Anatomy Center at the National Museum of Health and Medicine and the Biomedical Visualization Laboratory (BVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, "to develop software strategies for the development of distr

VIX is the ticker symbol and popular name for the Chicago Board Options Exchange's CBOE Volatility Index, a popular measure of the stock market's expectation of volatility based on S&P 500 index options. It is calculated and disseminated on a real-time basis by the CBOE, and is often referred to as the fear index or fear gauge.

Vix pervenit (lit. 'It has hardly reached') is an encyclical, promulgated by Pope Benedict XIV on 1 November 1745, which condemned the practice of charging interest on loans as usury. Because the encyclical was addressed to the bishops of Italy, it is generally not considered ex cathedra. The Holy Office applied the encyclical to the whole of the Roman Catholic Church on 29 July 1836, du

Vix Technology (Vix) is an Australian company that designs, supplies and operates automated fare collection (AFC) systems, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), access, payment and passenger information display systems (PIDS) for the public transit industry.

Vocalink is a payment systems company headquartered in the United Kingdom, created in 2007 from the merger between Voca and LINK. It designs, builds and operates the UK payments infrastructure, which underpins the provision of the Bacs payment system and the UK ATM LINK switching platform covering 65,000 ATMs and the UK Faster Payments systems.

In January 2022, 15—the pseudonymous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) artificial intelligence researcher and creator of the non-commercial generative artificial intelligence voice synthesis research project 15.ai—discovered that the blockchain-based technology company Voiceverse had plagiarized from their platform. Voiceverse marketed itself as a service that offered AI voice

In law, a voidable floating charge refers to a floating charge entered into shortly prior to the company going into liquidation which is void or unenforceable in whole or in part under applicable insolvency legislation.

In finance, volatility (usually denoted by "σ") is the degree of variation of a trading price series over time, usually measured by the standard deviation of logarithmic returns.

In finance, volatility arbitrage (vol arb) is a term for financial arbitrage techniques directly dependent and based on volatility.

Volatility risk

Volatility smiles are implied volatility patterns that arise in pricing financial options. It is a parameter (implied volatility) that needs to be modified for the Black–Scholes formula to fit market prices. Generally, for a given expiration, options whose strike price differs substantially from the underlying asset's forward price tend to have prices that deviate from their expected pri

In finance, a volatility swap is a forward contract on the future realised volatility of a given underlying asset. Volatility swaps allow investors to trade the volatility of an asset directly, much as they would trade a price index. Its payoff at expiration is equal to

The volatility tax is a mathematical finance term first published by Rick Ashburn, CFA in a 2003 column, and formalized by hedge fund manager Mark Spitznagel, describing the effect of large investment losses (or volatility) on compound returns. It has also been called volatility drag, volatility decay or variance drain. This is not literally a tax in the sense of a levy imposed by a gov

The Volcker Rule is section 619 of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (12 U.S.C. § 1851). The rule was originally proposed by American economist and former United States Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker in 2010 to restrict United States banks from making certain kinds of speculative investments that do not benefit their customers. It was not implemented until

The Volfefe Index was a stock market index of volatility in market sentiment for US Treasury bonds caused by tweets by President Donald Trump.

In capital markets, volume, or trading volume, is the amount (total number) of a security (or a given set of securities, or an entire market) that was traded during a given period of time. In the context of a single stock trading on a stock exchange, the volume is commonly reported as the number of shares that changed hands during a given day. The transactions are measured on stocks, bon

Volume risk, also known as quantity risk, is the risk of production or sales volumes materially and adversely deviating from their expected quantities. The term has context-specific applications.

The Vortex Indicator is a technical indicator invented by Etienne Botes and Douglas Siepman to identify the start of a new trend or the continuation of an existing trend within financial markets. It was published in the January 2010 edition of Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities.

Vote buying, also referred to as voter bribery, electoral clientelism and patronage politics, occurs when a political party or candidate distributes money or resources to a voter in an upcoming election with the expectation that the voter votes for the actor handing out monetary rewards. Vote buying can take various forms such as a monetary exchange, as well as an exchange for necessary

Voting interest (or voting power) in business and accounting means the total number, or percent, of votes entitled to be cast on the issue at the time the determination of voting power is made, excluding a vote which is contingent upon the happening of a condition or event which has not occurred at the time.

A voucher is a bond which is worth a certain monetary value and which may be redeemed only for specific reasons or on specific goods.

VugaPay is a cross-platform payment service owned by Vuga Ltd, a Rwandan company. It allows businesses and users to transfer money across major payment systems, including credit card networks, mobile money and Bitcoin via an application programming interface, unstructured supplementary service data interface, a mobile phone app, or a web interface. It processed over 5 million transaction

A vulture fund is a hedge fund or private-equity fund that invests in debt considered to be very weak or in default, known as distressed debt. Investors in the fund profit by buying debt at a discounted price on a secondary market and then using numerous methods to sell the debt for more than the purchasing price. Debtors include companies, countries, and individuals.

The wage unit is a unit of measurement for monetary quantities introduced by Keynes in his 1936 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (General Theory). A value expressed in wage units is equal to its price in money units divided by the wage (in money units) of a man-hour of labour.

Wagner's law, also known as the law of increasing state activity, is the observation that public expenditure increases as national income rises. It is named after the German economist Adolph Wagner (1835–1917), who first observed the effect in his own country and then for other countries.