Industry WIKI

Teachers' Pension Scheme (TPS) is the statutory, unfunded defined-benefit public service pension scheme for eligible teachers and lecturers in England and Wales. It operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, with benefits paid from public funds. As at 31 March 2025, the scheme reported a pension liability of about £290.7 billion.

Telexfree (stylized as TelexFREE), a trade name owned by Telexfree Inc., was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme disguised as an internet phone service company. Prosecutors have described it as the largest fraud of all time in terms of the number of people affected - more than 1 million, with victims in various countries. The brand became best known for its operations in Brazil held by Ym

Tencent QQ (Chinese: 腾讯QQ), also known as QQ, is an instant messaging software service and web portal developed by the Chinese technology company Tencent. QQ offers services that provide online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, and group and voice chat software. As of March 2023, there were 597 million monthly active QQ accounts.

Tether Limited is a financial technology company that issues the Tether stablecoin (USDT), the world’s largest stablecoin by market capitalization. Founded in 2014, Tether pioneered the concept of fiat-backed digital currencies pegged 1:1 to traditional currencies (initially the U.S. dollar). USDT has become a key source of liquidity in the cryptocurrency market, with over $170 billion i

Tez was a mobile payments service by Google, targeted at users in India, later folded into the new Google Pay app on 28 August 2018. It operated atop the Unified Payments Interface, developed by the National Payments Corporation of India. The product was created as part of Google's Next Billion Users initiative led by Caesar Sengupta, former vice president and general manager, Payments &

In 2009, Tourism Queensland promoted the Great Barrier Reef as a global tourism destination with a website encouraging people worldwide to apply for The Best Job In The World, to be a "Caretaker of the Islands" to "house-sit" the islands of the Great Barrier Reef for half a year, based on Hamilton Island.

The Container Store Group, Inc. was an American specialty retail chain which offered storage and organization products and custom closets. The company was acquired by Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc. for $150 million in July 2026, with plans to rebrand its 98 locations to incorporate the Bed Bath & Beyond name.

The Financier is a novel by Theodore Dreiser, based on real-life streetcar tycoon Charles Yerkes. Dreiser started writing his manuscript in 1911, and the following year published the first part of his lengthy work as The Financier. The second part appeared in 1914 as The Titan; the third volume of his Trilogy of Desire was also Dreiser's final novel, The Stoic (1947).

The Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947 (known as FERA) is a law enacted and was officially published by the government of Pakistan and still applicable in Bangladesh, which was East Pakistan before independence, to regulate certain payments, dealings in foreign exchange and securities, and the import and export of currency and bullion.

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy (ISBN 0-671-01520-6) is a 1996 book by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. The book is a compilation of research done by the two authors in the profiles of American millionaires.

The Navigator is a literary financial thriller novel written by Michael Pocalyko and published by Forge Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers. It tells the story of "the world's first trillion dollar deal" against a backdrop of Wall Street dealmaking, Washington political intrigue, the relationship of two brothers, and international espionage.

The Roaring Twenties is a 1939 American gangster film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart, and Gladys George. The film, spanning the period from 1919 to 1933, was written by Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay and Robert Rossen. The film follows three men and their experiences during major events in the 1920s, such as Prohibition era violence and t

The Vanguard Group, Inc. is an American registered investment adviser founded on May 1, 1975, and based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with approximately $13.3 trillion in global assets under management as of 2025. It is the largest provider of mutual funds and the second-largest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the world after BlackRock's iShares. In addition to mutual funds and E

Thomas Peterffy (born September 30, 1944) is a Hungarian-born American billionaire businessman. He is the founder, chairman and the largest shareholder of Interactive Brokers. As of November 2025, his estimated net worth is US$109 billion, making him the 18th richest person in the world.

TIBCO Software Inc. is a business unit of Cloud Software Group that provides enterprise software. It has headquarters in Palo Alto and offices in North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America.

A tiger economy is the economy of a country which undergoes rapid economic growth, usually accompanied by an increase in the standard of living. The term was originally used for the Four Asian Tigers (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) as tigers are important in Asian symbolism, which also inspired the Tiger Cub Economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philip

TikTok Shop is an e-commerce feature of the video hosting service TikTok. Officially launched in September 2023, the feature enables users interested in starting a business and generating income to upload their curated products on TikTok for others to discover and purchase. Daily sales averaged approximately US$7 million in October 2023.As of October 2026, it has been estimated that 54 m

In numismatics, token coins or trade tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of token coins is part of exonumia and token coins are token money. Their denomination is shown or implied by size, color or shape. They are often made of cheaper metals like copper, pewter, aluminium, brass and tin, or non-metals like bakelite, leather and porcelain.

"Too big to fail" (TBTF) is a theory in banking and finance that asserts that certain corporations, particularly financial institutions, are so large and so interconnected with an economy that their failure would be disastrous to the greater economic system, and therefore should be supported by government when they face potential failure. The colloquial term "too big to fail" was popular

Toshiba Corporation (株式会社東芝, Kabushikigaisha Tōshiba; English: ) is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors, hard disk drives, printers, batteries, lighting, as w

TradElect was the London Stock Exchange's main electronic trading platform from 2007 to 2011. It ran on HP ProLiant servers running Windows Server 2003, using .NET technology and Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Its development took four years from project inception to rollout and had a total cost of £40 million.

Trading 212 is a European fintech brokerage group founded in Bulgaria in 2004 and headquartered in London, United Kingdom.

TreasuryDirect is a website run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service under the United States Department of the Treasury that allows US individual investors to purchase treasury securities, such as savings bonds, directly from the US government. It enables people to manage their investments online, including connecting their TreasuryDirect account to a bank account for deposits and withdra

In international finance, the Triffin dilemma (sometimes the Triffin paradox) is the conflict of economic interests that arises between short-term domestic and long-term international objectives for countries whose currencies serve as global reserve currencies. This dilemma was identified in the 1960s by Belgian-American economist Robert Triffin. He noted that a country whose currency i

The Trillion dollar club is an unofficial classification of the world's major economies with a gross domestic product (nominal GDP) of more than US$1 trillion per year. As of 2025, it included 21 countries. This does not include purchasing power parity, which increases the GDP of many countries with an undervalued currency, which are usually poorer countries.

Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions is a book by Ben Mezrich that recounts the exploits of an American called John Malcolm (a pseudonym) arbitraging index futures in Japan in the 1990s. The book was released on May 4, 2004 by William Morrow and Company.

In business, a unicorn is a startup company valued at over US$1 billion which is privately owned and therefore its company shares are not publicly listed. The term was coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures.

A unicorn bubble is a theoretical economic bubble that would occur when unicorn startup companies are overvalued by venture capitalists or investors. This can either occur during the private phase of these unicorn companies, or in an initial public offering. A unicorn company is a startup company valued at, or above, $1 billion US dollars.

United Rentals, Inc. is an American equipment rental company, with about 16 percent of the North American market share as of 2022. It owns the largest rental fleet in the world with approximately 4,800 classes of equipment totaling about $20.59 billion in original equipment cost (OEC) as of 2025. The company has a combined total of 1,625 locations, including an integrated network of 1,50

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 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

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.

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.

Valpak Direct Marketing Systems, LLC, commonly known as Valpak, is a North American direct marketing company owned by AmatoMartin. Valpak provides print, mobile and online advertising, customer data and coupons. Valpak mails coupons to 41 million demographically targeted households each month and millions more consumers through its advertising postcards and website every year.

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 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

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

Verisure P.L.C. (formerly known as Securitas Direct) is a security company based in Versoix, close to Geneva in Switzerland and active in 17 countries in Europe and South America and provides security services to 5.7 million families and businesses. Hellman & Friedman is currently the main shareholder in the group but announced plans to take the company public in October 2025.

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

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

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

Walgreens is an American pharmacy store chain headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois. It is the second largest pharmacy chain in the United States, behind CVS Pharmacy. As of 2026, Walgreens operated 8,000 stores in the United States, serving 9 million customers daily and employing 211,000 team members. In addition to pharmacy services, Walgreens also offers photo services.

Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) was an American multinational holding company headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois. The company was formed on December 31, 2014, after Walgreens bought the 55% stake in Alliance Boots (owner of Boots UK Limited) that it did not already own. The total price of the acquisition was $4.9 billion in cash and 144.3 million common shares with fair value of $

Warren Edward Buffett ( BUFF-it; born August 30, 1930) is an American investor and philanthropist who is the chairman emeritus and former CEO of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway. As a result of his success, Buffett is one of the best-known investors in the world. According to Forbes, as of January 2026, Buffett's estimated net worth stood at US$148.9 billion, making him the ninth-rich

The inequality of wealth (i.e., inequality in the distribution of assets) has substantially increased in the United States since the late 1980s. Wealth commonly includes the values of any homes, automobiles, personal valuables, businesses, savings, and investments, less any associated debts.

Wealth management (WM) or wealth management advisory (WMA) is an investment advisory service that provides financial management and wealth advisory services to a wide array of clients ranging from affluent to high-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individuals and families.

Wealthfront Corporation is an American financial services company based in Palo Alto, California, founded by Andy Rachleff and Dan Carroll in 2008. As of September 2026, Wealthfront reported approximately $100 billion assets under management for more than 1.5 million clients.

Wealthsimple Inc. is a Canadian online investment management service. The firm was founded in September 2014 by Michael Katchen, Brett Huneycutt, and Rudy Adler and is based in Toronto. As of October 22, 2025, the firm holds over C$100 billion in assets under administration. It is primarily owned by Power Corporation, which holds a 52.4% undiluted stake aggregated through three entities:

WebMoney is an online payment settlement system established in Russia in 1998. It is one of the largest electronic payments processors in Russia by number of users, with the company reporting 45 million registered accounts and 300,000 active weekly users in early 2020, and 100,000 stores accepting payments via the system. WebMoney is owned and operated by WM Transfer Ltd.

WeChat Pay (Chinese: 微信支付; pinyin: Wēixìn Zhīfù) is a mobile payment and digital wallet service by WeChat based in China that allows users to make mobile payments and online transactions. As of March 2016, WeChat Pay had over 300 million users. WeChat Pay reached 1.133 billion active users in 2023. WeChat Pay's main competitor in China and the market leader in online payments is Alibaba

The West African CFA franc (French: franc CFA or simply franc, ISO 4217 code: XOF; abbreviation: F.CFA) is the currency used by eight independent states in West Africa which make up the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA): Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. These eight countries had a combined population of 105.7 m

Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is an American nuclear power company formed in 1999 from the nuclear power division of the original Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It offers nuclear products and services to utilities internationally, including nuclear fuel, service and maintenance, instrumentation, control and design of nuclear power plants. Westinghouse's world headquarters are loc

Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. is a Canadian multinational precious metals streaming company. It produces over 26 million ounces and sells over 29 million ounces of silver mined by other companies (including Barrick Gold and Goldcorp) as a by-product of their main operations.

William E. "Bill" Conway Jr. (born August 27, 1949) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Conway is co-executive chairman and co-founder of the Carlyle Group. He is chairman of the board of trustees of Johns Hopkins Medicine and a member of the board of trustees of the Catholic University of America. According to Forbes, Conway had a net worth of US$3.6 billion as of

In 1896, William McKinley was elected President of the United States. McKinley, a Republican and former Governor of Ohio, defeated the joint Democratic and Populist nominee, William Jennings Bryan, as well as minor-party candidates. McKinley's decisive victory in what is sometimes seen as a realigning election ended a period of close presidential contests, and ushered in an era of domina

WinCapita, previously WinClub and GiiClub, was a Finnish Internet-based Ponzi scheme that advertised itself as a private investment club engaged in currency trading. In reality, it was a bucket shop like many other foreign exchange fraud schemes. It operated mainly in Finland, with a smaller number of members also in Sweden. The operation collected about 100 million euros from more than

WL Ross & Co is a private equity company founded and based in New York by Wilbur Ross in April 2000. The company focuses on investments in financially distressed companies with undervalued stocks, in the $100 to $200 million range, usually in the United States, Asia, Korea, Ireland, Japan, France and China. By acquiring majority stake in their investments through purchases and/or buyouts

Wolseley UK Limited, headquartered in Warwick, is a distributor of building materials and is the largest trade specialist in plumbing and heating in the UK. It is owned by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, a private equity firm.

The World Branding Forum is a global nonprofit organisation based in London, England. The forum runs various programmes and organises conference, workshops and seminars. It operates a newsroom and publishes industry news on its website. It is also a media partner for various industry events. The forum's industry recognition programme is the World Branding Awards, which it organises annua

Worldline SA is a French payment processing company founded in 1972. In 2024 its revenue was €4.63 billion.

Worldpay Group plc (formerly RBS WorldPay) was a payment processing company. It was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange until 16 January 2018 when it was acquired by Vantiv. The combined company then took the name Worldpay, Inc. Worldpay, Inc. was acquired by FIS in July 2019 for $43 billion. In 2024, private-equity firm GTCR acquired a majority 55% equity interest in Worldpay.

Worldpay is an American multinational financial technology company and payment processing company. It provides payment and technology services to merchants and financial institutions globally generating 40 billion transactions across 146 countries and 135 currencies.

Yape (pronounced [ˈʝape]) is a digital wallet and mobile payment application developed by the Banco de Crédito del Perú (BCP) in 2016. As of 2025, it has over 20 million users. Its features include instant, commission-free peer-to-peer transfers, bill payments, and purchases using a smartphone via a phone number or QR code, without requiring a traditional bank account, enabling its use b

Yellow Pages Limited is a Canadian publication and internet services company that owns and operates Canadian properties and publications including Yellow Pages directories, YellowPages.ca, and Canada411.ca. Its online destinations reach approximately 9 million unique visitors monthly and its mobile applications for finding local citizens, downloaded more than 3 million times.

You Can't Take It with You is a 1938 American screwball romantic comedy film directed by Frank Capra, and starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, and Edward Arnold. Adapted by Robert Riskin from the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1936 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, the film is about a man from a family of rich snobs who becomes engaged to a woman from a

Yozma, Yozma Program, or Yozma Fund was a venture capital organization in Israel that initially started out as a government funded program in 1993 to help kick start venture capital, angel investing, and private equity in Israel's economy. $20 million of government subsidies went to the Yozma Fund, the other $80 million the government provided went to match other foreign and domestic fir

ZuluTrade is a Greek financial technology company that operates an online and mobile social and copy trading platform. The platform allows users to automatically copy the trades of other investors in the foreign exchange market. As of 2014 ZuluTrade had around one million users and an executed trading volume of over $800 billion.