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In November 2008, Munaf Kalia (CEO of Khanani and Kalia International (Pvt.) Ltd.), Yusuf Kalia, and associates, were charged with illegally transferring funds from Pakistan to Afghanistan. In light of the charges, the State Bank of Pakistan revoked the license for Khanani and Kalia International to operate its foreign exchange business and shut down its offices.

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

Paris Saint-Germain FC were initially fan-owned, with around 20,000 members under a non-profit association governed by 1901 French law (Association PSG). The club was led by board members Guy Crescent, Pierre-Étienne Guyot and Henri Patrelle. In 1973, a group of French businessmen led by Daniel Hechter and Francis Borelli took control of the club. PSG changed ownership in 1991 when Canal

A passbook or bankbook is a paper book used to record bank or building society transactions on a deposit account.

The Pawnbrokers Act 1872 (35 & 36 Vict. c. 93) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that repealed, altered and consolidated all previous legislation relating pawnbroking in Great Britain.

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

Peel's Bill, or the Resumption of Cash Payments Act 1819 (59 Geo. 3. c. 49) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that marked the return of the British currency to the gold standard, after the Bank Restriction Act 1797 (37 Geo. 3. c. 45) saw paper money replacing convertibility to gold and silver under the financial pressures of the French Revolutionary Wars.

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

In American economics, penny stocks are common shares of small public companies that trade for less than $5 per share.

The Personal Property Security Act ("PPSA") is the name given to each of the statutes passed by all common law provinces, as well as the territories, of Canada that regulate the creation and registration of security interests in all personal property within their respective jurisdictions.

Peter Andreas Thiel ( ; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and conservative political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund, he was also the first outside investor in Facebook. As of October 2026, Forbes estimated Thiel's net worth at US$37.7 billion.

Pierre Morad Omidyar (born Parviz Morad Omidyar, June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian-American billionaire. A technology entrepreneur, software engineer, and philanthropist, he is the founder of eBay, where he served as chairman from 1998 to 2015. Omidyar is the grandson of the Imperial Iranian Army General Mahmud Mir-Djalali, who was instrumental in the 1921 rise of the Pahlavi Dyna

The Pineapple Fund was a philanthropic project by an anonymous individual which gave away 5,057 bitcoins to 60 charities. The amount was valued at $86 million in December 2017. Some of the themes supported were medical research, environmental conservation, human rights and psychedelic therapy.

A politically exposed person (PEP) in financial regulation is one who has been entrusted with a prominent public function. A PEP generally presents a higher risk for potential involvement in bribery and corruption by virtue of their position and the influence they may hold. The terms "politically exposed person" and senior foreign political figure are often used interchangeably, particul

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

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

Under Ministerial Order n. 150/2004 of 13 February, issued by the Portuguese Ministry of Finance and consequently updated, Portugal defines an official blacklist of countries and jurisdictions considered for legal and tax purposes as tax havens.

Powa Technologies was a UK-based technology company, known for its commerce, mobile commerce and e-commerce services.

Prediction markets, also known as betting markets, information markets, decision markets, idea futures, or event derivatives, are open markets that enable the prediction of specific outcomes using financial incentives. They are exchange-traded markets established for trading bets in the outcome of various events.

Prepaid refers to goods and services paid for in advance. Examples include postage stamps, attorneys, tolls, public transit cards like the Greater London Oyster card, pay as you go cell phones, and stored-value cards such as gift cards and preloaded credit cards.

In economics, a price system is a system through which the valuations of any forms of property (tangible or intangible) are determined. All societies use price systems in the allocation and exchange of resources as a consequence of scarcity. Even in a barter system with no money, price systems are still utilized in the determination of exchange ratios (relative valuations) between the pr

Packaged retail investment and insurance products (PRIIPs) is European Union regulatory term to encompass a range of investment products that banks or other financial institutions offer to consumers. It was first used in regulation (EU) No 1286/2014, known as the PRIIPs regulation, the aim of which was to improve the transparency and comparability of investment products across the EU th

The primary market is the part of the capital market that deals with the issuance and sale of securities to purchasers directly by the issuer, with the issuer being paid the proceeds. A primary market means the market for new issues of securities, as distinguished from the secondary market, where previously issued securities are bought and sold. A market is primary if the proceeds of sal

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

In the 2020s private equity (PE) firms responded to the COVID-19 recession with a surge in funding.

A private investment in public equity, commonly known as a PIPE deal, involves selling of publicly traded common shares or some form of preferred stock or convertible security to private investors. It is an allocation of shares in a public company not through a public offering in a stock exchange. PIPE deals are part of the primary market. In the U.S., a PIPE offering may be registered w

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

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

Proof of work (also written as proof-of-work, and abbreviated PoW) is a form of cryptographic proof in which one party (the prover) proves to others (the verifiers) that a certain amount of a specific computational effort has been expended. Verifiers can subsequently confirm this expenditure with minimal effort on their part. The concept was first proposed by Moni Naor and Cynthia Dwork

A prospectus, in finance, is a disclosure document that describes a financial security for potential buyers. It commonly provides investors with material information about mutual funds, stocks, bonds and other investments, such as a description of the company's business, financial statements, biographies of officers and directors, detailed information about their compensation, any litiga

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) is a United Kingdom financial services regulatory body, formed as one of the successors to the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The authority is responsible for the prudential regulation and supervision of banks, building societies, credit unions, insurers and major investment firms. It sets standards and supervises financial institutions at t

In the context of stock markets, the public float or free float represents the portion of shares of a corporation that are in the hands of public investors as opposed to shares held by promoters, company officers, controlling interest investors, or governments. This number is sometimes seen as a better way of calculating market capitalization, because it provides a more accurate reflecti

Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements (pump), in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price (dump).

Purchasing power parity (PPP) is a measure of the price of specific goods in different countries and is used to compare the absolute purchasing power of the countries' currencies. PPP is effectively the ratio of the price of a market basket at one location divided by the price of the basket of goods at a different location. The PPP inflation and exchange rate may differ from the market e

Qardh al-hasan (Arabic: قرض الحسن, transl. benevolent lending) is an Islamic concept of interest-free lending. It is based on the principle of helping others without expecting a financial gain. However some Ulama deem it a form of interest-free loan (fungible, marketable wealth) that is extended by a lender to a borrower on the basis of benevolence (ihsan). Al-qardh, from a shari’a point

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

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

Re Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA (No 8) [1998] AC 214 is a UK insolvency law case, concerning the taking of a security interest over a company's assets and priority of creditors in a company winding up.

This article is a list of all notable reaction to James Tobin's 1972 proposal of what is now known as the Tobin tax.

The real bills doctrine says that as long as bankers lend to businessmen only against the security (collateral) of short-term 30-, 60-, or 90-day commercial paper representing claims to real goods in the process of production, the loans will be just sufficient to finance the production of goods. The doctrine seeks to have real output determine its own means of purchase without affecting

A real estate mortgage investment conduit (REMIC) is a business entity that issues investment securities representing interests in a portfolio of mortgages. Under U.S. Federal income tax law a REMIC can qualify for treatment as a partnership, with tax payable by investors rather than the entity. REMICs are used for the pooling of mortgage loans and issuance of mortgage-backed securities

Reference re Pan‑Canadian Securities Regulation, 2018 SCC 48 is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, dealing with the Canadian doctrine of cooperative federalism and how it intersects with the power of the Parliament of Canada over trade and commerce, as well as discussing the nature of parliamentary sovereignty in Canada.

Reference Re Securities Act [2011] 3 S.C.R. 837, 2011 SCC 66 is a landmark opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada to a reference question posed on the extent of the ability of the Parliament of Canada to use its trade and commerce power.

A Refinitiv Instrument Code, previously Reuters Instrument Code (RIC), is a ticker-like code used by Refinitiv to identify financial instruments and indices. The codes are used for looking up information on various Refinitiv financial information networks (such as Refinitiv Real Time) and appear to have developed from the Quotron service purchased in the 1980s.

In the United States under the Securities Act of 1933, any offer to sell securities must either be registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or meet certain qualifications to exempt it from such registration. Regulation A (or Reg A) contains rules providing exemptions from the registration requirements, allowing some companies to offer and sell their secu

Regulation of algorithms, or algorithmic regulation, is the creation of laws, rules and public sector policies for promotion and regulation of algorithms, particularly in artificial intelligence and machine learning. For the subset of AI algorithms, the term regulation of artificial intelligence is used. The regulatory and policy landscape for artificial intelligence (AI) is an emerging

The regulation of cryptocurrency constitutes regulatory, legal and political actions taken by various governments to regulate and oversee the development and adoption of bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. Restrictions on cryptocurrency have been motivated by concerns regarding financial stability, consumer protection, national security, and enforcing laws against mon

Regulation S-K is a prescribed regulation under the US Securities Act of 1933 that lays out reporting requirements for various SEC filings used by public companies. Companies are also often called issuers (issuing or contemplating issuing shares), filers (entities that must file reports with the SEC) or registrants (entities that must register (usually shares) with the SEC).

Regulation S-X is a prescribed regulation in the United States of America that lays out the specific form and content of financial reports, specifically the financial statements of public companies. It is cited as 17 C.F.R. Part 210; the name of the part is "Form and Content of and Requirements for Financial Statements, Securities Act of 1933, Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Public Util

Regulatory capitalism suggests that the operation maintenance and development of the international political economy increasingly depends on administrative rules outside the legislatures and the courts. In other words, it tells us that capitalism is a regulatory institution – one that is being constituted, shaped, constrained and expanded as a historically woven patchwork of regulatory i

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

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

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

The Republika Srpska Securities Commission (Serbian: Комисија за хартије од вриједности Републике Српске or Komisija za hartije od vrijednosti Republike Srpske) is a financial services regulator in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is based in the city of Banja Luka.

Restricted stock, also known as restricted securities, is stock of a company that is not fully transferable (from the stock-issuing company to the person receiving the stock award) until certain conditions (restrictions) have been met. Upon satisfaction of those conditions, the stock is no longer restricted, and becomes transferable to the person holding the award. Restricted stock is of

Returns-based style analysis (RBSA) is a statistical technique used in finance to deconstruct the returns of investment strategies using a variety of explanatory variables. The model results in a strategy's exposures to asset classes or other factors, interpreted as a measure of a fund or portfolio manager's investment style. While the model is most frequently used to show an equity mutu

Reuters 3000 Xtra was an electronic trading platform which was released by Reuters in 1999 and supported until the end of 2013. It was typically used by professional traders and financial analysts in trading rooms. It was superseded by the Eikon platform, first released in 2010.

In finance, a reverse stock split or reverse split is a process by which shares of corporate stock are effectively merged to form a smaller number of proportionally more valuable shares.

Riba (Arabic: ربا ,الربا، الربٰوة, ribā or al-ribā, IPA: [ˈrɪbæː]) is an Arabic word used in Islamic law and roughly translated as "usury": unjust, exploitative gains made in trade or business (especially banking). Riba is mentioned and condemned in several different verses in the Qur'an (3:130, 4:161, 30:39, and the commonly referenced 2:275-2:280). It is also mentioned in many hadith (

Risk of ruin is a concept in gambling, insurance, and finance relating to the likelihood of losing all one's investment capital or extinguishing one's bankroll below the minimum for further play. For instance, if someone bets all their money on a simple coin toss, the risk of ruin is 50%. In a multiple-bet scenario, risk of ruin accumulates with the number of bets: each play increases th

In mathematical finance, a risk-neutral measure (also called an equilibrium measure, or equivalent martingale measure) is a probability measure such that each share price is exactly equal to the discounted expectation of the share price under this measure.

Roberta Sarah Karmel (née Segal; May 4, 1937 – March 23, 2024) was an American attorney and the Centennial Professor of Law, and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of International Business Law, at Brooklyn Law School. She was the first female Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Royal Mint Gold was a digital gold currency and a cryptocurrency backed by gold reserves in the UK Royal Mint. The Royal Mint launched a digitized token called RMG, representing one gram of physical gold per token, in 2016. It began testing blockchain transactions in April 2017. The first test transaction was in August 2017. The rollout was originally scheduled to occur by the end of 20

S&P 500 futures are financial futures which allow an investor to hedge with or speculate on the future value of various components of the S&P 500 Index market index. S&P 500 futures contracts were first introduced by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1982. The CME added the e-mini option in 1997. The bundle of stocks in the S&P 500 is, per the name, composed of stocks of 500 large compa

In mathematical finance, the SABR model is a stochastic volatility model, which attempts to capture the volatility smile in derivatives markets. The name stands for "stochastic alpha, beta, rho", referring to the parameters of the model. The SABR model is widely used by practitioners in the financial industry, especially in the interest rate derivative markets. It was developed by Patric

The SADAD payment system was established by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) to be the national electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) service provider for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The core mandate for SADAD is to facilitate and streamline bill payment transactions of end consumers through all channels of the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) Banks. SADAD was launched on June

A safe deposit box, sometimes referred to as a safety deposit box, is an individually secured container, usually held within a larger safe or bank vault. Safe deposit boxes are generally located in banks, post offices, or other institutions.

The dobra (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈdɔβɾɐ]) is the currency of São Tomé and Príncipe. It is abbreviated Db and is divided into 100 cêntimos. The first dobra (STD) was introduced in 1977, replacing the escudo at par. Due to past inflation, on 1 January 2018 the dobra was redenominated at a rate of 1000 to 1, and given the new ISO 4217 currency code STN.

The Saudi riyal (symbol: ⃁; code: SAR) is the currency of Saudi Arabia. Each riyal, the base unit, is subdivided into 100 halala (Arabic: هللة Halalah).

A scam center, fraud factory, fraud park, scam factory, scam compound, scam hub, scam park, fraud center, fraud compound, or fraud hub is a collection of large fraudulent organizations usually involved in human trafficking operations, generally found in Southeast Asia and usually operated by a criminal gang. Scam center operators lure foreign nationals to scam hubs, where they are forced

In law, scienter (, Law Latin for "knowingly", Latin pronunciation: [skiˈɛntɛr], from Latin scire 'to know, to separate one thing from another') is a legal term for intent or knowledge of wrongdoing, or reckless disregard for the truth. An offending party then has knowledge of the "wrongness" of an act or event prior to committing it.

SEC Rule 10b-5, codified at 17 CFR 240.10b-5, is one of the most important rules targeting securities fraud in the United States. It was promulgated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), pursuant to its authority granted under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The rule prohibits any act or omission resulting in fraud or deceit in connection with the purchase

SEC Rule 10b5-1, codified at 17 CFR 240.10b5-1, is a regulation enacted by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2000. The SEC states that Rule 10b5-1 was enacted in order to resolve an unsettled issue over the definition of insider trading, which is prohibited by SEC Rule 10b-5.

Sector rotation is a theory of stock market trading patterns.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP; Urdu: سیکیورٹیز اینڈ ایکسچینج کمیشن آف پاکستان), formerly known as Company Law Administration, Company Law Board, and Corporate Law Authority, is the corporate legislative and financial regulatory agency of Pakistan whose objective is to develop a modern and efficient corporate sector and a capital market based on sound authority

A securities class action (SCA), or securities fraud class action, is a lawsuit filed by investors who bought or sold a company's publicly traded securities within a specific period of time (known as a “class period”) and suffered economic injury as a result of violations of the securities laws.

A securities commission, securities regulator or capital market authority is a government department or agency responsible for financial regulation of securities products within a particular country. Its powers and responsibilities vary greatly from country to country, but generally cover the setting of rules as well as enforcing them for financial intermediaries and stock exchanges.

Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information. The setups are generally made to result in monetary gain for the deceivers, and generally result in unfair monetary losses for the investors. They are generally violating

Securities market participants in the United States include corporations and governments issuing securities, persons and corporations buying and selling a security, the broker-dealers and exchanges which facilitate such trading, banks which safe keep assets, and regulators who monitor the markets' activities. Investors buy and sell through broker-dealers and have their assets retained b

A securities offering (or funding round or investment round) is a discrete round of investment, by which a business or other raises money to fund operations, expansion, a capital project, an acquisition, or some other business purpose.

A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any form of financial instrument, even though the underlying legal and regulatory regime may not have such a broad definition. In some jurisdictions the

A security agreement, in the law of the United States, is a contract that governs the relationship between the parties to a kind of financial transaction known as a secured transaction. In a secured transaction, the Grantor (typically a borrower but possibly a guarantor or surety) assigns, grants and pledges to the grantee (typically the lender) a security interest in personal property w

In law and finance, a security interest is a legal right that a secured party has over secured assets. Security interests most often arise where a debtor grants an interest over collateral to a creditor to secure the loan, such that the creditor will have enforceable rights in the event of the debtor's default or non-performance.

Segregated Witness (SegWit), formally known as Segregated Witness (Consensus layer), is an implemented soft fork change in the transaction format of bitcoin.

Sell in May and go away is an investment strategy for stocks based on a theory (sometimes known as the Halloween indicator) that the period from November to April inclusive has significantly stronger stock market growth on average than the other months. In such strategies, stock holdings are sold or minimized at about the start of May and the proceeds held in cash (e.g. a money market fu

Session is an Australian, currently Switzerland-based, cross-platform end-to-end encrypted instant messaging application emphasizing user confidentiality and anonymity. Developed and maintained by the non-profit The Session Technology Foundation, it employs a blockchain-based decentralized network for transmission. Users can send one-to-one and group messages, including various media typ

In law, set-off or netting is a legal technique applied between persons or businesses with mutual rights and liabilities, replacing gross positions with net positions. It permits the rights to be used to discharge the liabilities where cross claims exist between a plaintiff and a respondent, the result being that the gross claims of mutual debt produce a single net claim. The net claim i

Settlement risk, also known as delivery risk or counterparty risk, is the risk that a counterparty (or intermediary agent) fails to deliver a security or its value in cash as per agreement after the first party has delivered the security or cash value. The term covers factors incidental to the settlement process that may suspend or prevent a trade from completing, even should the partie

Shape risk in finance is a type of basis risk when hedging a load profile with standard hedging products having a lower granularity. In other words, a commodity supplier wants to pre-purchase supplies for expected demand, but can only buy in fixed amounts that are bigger or smaller than the demand forecasted. This means it has to either over order or under order and make up the differe

In finance, a share class or share classification are different types of shares in company share capital that have different levels of voting rights. For example, a company might create two classes of shares class A share and a class B share where the class A shares have fewer rights than class B shareholders. This may be done to maintain control of a company by a group of shareholders o

Share repurchase, also known as share buyback or stock buyback, is the reacquisition by a company of its own shares. It is an alternative way of returning money to shareholders than dividends. After a repurchase event, the company's stock price is now proportionally higher because of the smaller number of shares outstanding. Repurchases allow stockholders to potentially reduce taxes, by

A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as a stockholder) refers to an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) who is registered by a corporation as the legal owner of shares of the corporations share capital. Both public companies and private corporation have shareholders. Shareholders may also be referred to as mem

Sharia and securities trading is the impact of conventional financial markets activity for those following the Islamic religion and particularly sharia law. Sharia practices ban riba (earning interest) and involvement in haram. It also forbids gambling (maisir) and excessive risk (bayu al-gharar). This, however has not stopped some in Islamic finance industry from using some of these ins

Shipbroking is a financial service, which forms part of the global shipping industry. Shipbrokers are specialist intermediaries/negotiators (i.e. brokers) between shipowners and charterers who use ships to transport cargo, or between buyers and sellers of vessels.

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is a payment-integration system of the European Union that makes cross-border bank transfers in euros as fast, cheap, and simple as domestic payments. It allows individuals and businesses to make cashless euro transfers to any account within the zone using a single bank account and an International Bank Account Number, under the same basic conditions

Skattrannsóknarstjóri ríkisins, also known as the Directorate of Tax Investigations (DTI) is responsible for investigating legal cases where suspicions of tax fraud, tax evasion, or other violations of tax law are found within Iceland. The DTI is accountable to the Minister of Finance.

A smart contract is a computer program or a transaction protocol that is intended to automatically execute, control or document events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement. The objectives of smart contracts are the reduction of need for trusted intermediators, arbitration costs, and fraud losses, as well as the reduction of malicious and accidental exceptions.

The Smeed Report (titled Road Pricing: The Economic and Technical Possibilities) was a study into alternative methods of charging for road use, commissioned by the UK government between 1962 and 1964 led by R. J. Smeed. The report stopped short of an unqualified recommendation for road pricing but supported congestion pricing for busy road networks.

Solana is a public blockchain platform that uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and provides smart contract functionality. The platform's native cryptocurrency is SOL. Solana was founded in 2018 by Toly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, and the network was launched in March 2020 by their San Francisco-based company, Solana Labs.

The Sortino ratio measures the risk-adjusted return of an investment asset, portfolio, or strategy. It is a modification of the Sharpe ratio but penalizes only those returns falling below a user-specified target or required rate of return, while the Sharpe ratio penalizes both upside and downside variance equally. Though both ratios measure an investment's risk-adjusted return, they do s