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A Master of Finance is a professional master's degree awarded by higher education institutions preparing students for careers in finance.

A Master of Financial Economics is a postgraduate master's degree focusing

A master's degree in quantitative finance is a postgraduate degree focused on the application of mathematical methods to the solution of problems in financial economics. There are several like-titled degrees which may further focus on financial engineering, computational finance, mathematical finance, or financial risk management.

The Mauritius Leaks were the report of a datajournalistic investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in 2019 about how the former British colony Mauritius has transformed itself into a thriving financial centre and tax haven.

Medical debt refers to debt incurred by individuals due to health care costs and related expenses, such as an ambulance ride or the cost of visiting a doctor.

A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage, it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commodities, particularly cloth merchants. Historically, merchant banks' purpose was to facilitate or finance the production and trade of commodities,

MerchantBridge & Co. Ltd. was a London-based boutique private equity firm that specialized in investments in the Middle East and especially Iraq, where it was one of the largest such firms. It was in existence from 2001 to 2018.

Mergers and acquisitions in United Kingdom law refers to a body of law that covers companies, labour, and competition, which is engaged when firms restructure their affairs in the course of business.

Mezzanine capital is a type of financing that sits between senior debt and equity in a company's capital structure. It is typically used to fund growth, acquisitions, or buyouts. Technically, mezzanine capital can be either a debt or equity instrument with a repayment priority between senior debt and common stock equity. Mezzanine debt is subordinated debt that represents a claim on a co

Micros Systems, Inc. was an American computer company that manufactured hardware and developed software and services for the restaurant point of sale, hotel, hospitality, sports and entertainment venues, casinos, cruise lines, specialty retail markets, and other similar markets. Analyst estimates cited in 2003 put Micros' market share at about 35% of the restaurant point-of-sale business

Strategy Inc., stylized as Strategy₿ and formerly known as MicroStrategy, is an American company that provides business intelligence (BI) and mobile software. Founded in 1989 by Michael J. Saylor, Sanju Bansal, and Thomas Spahr, the firm develops software to analyze internal and external data in order to make business decisions and to develop mobile apps. It is a public company headquart

Midland Credit Management, Inc. is an American debt buyer and debt collection company headquartered in San Diego, California, and has offices throughout the United States as well as in India and Costa Rica. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Encore Capital Group (Nasdaq: ECPG). It is one of the largest debt collectors in the United States.

Midpoint (Midpoint Holdings Ltd) is a UK headquartered, Toronto and Frankfurt listed company providing international payments and peer-to-peer foreign exchange (bureau de change) services to individual and corporate customers. Midpoint is the world’s first dedicated peer-to-peer international foreign currency matching platform. The company's patented matching technology was the first app

Milla de Oro (English for Golden Mile) is the main financial district of Puerto Rico, containing the largest agglomeration of corporate investment, banking, and financial institutions in the Caribbean. Located in the Hato Rey business center of San Juan, the capital municipality of the archipelago and island, it is concentrated in the sections of Juan Ponce de León Avenue and Luis Muñoz

The Ministry of Finance (MOF; Malay: Kementerian Kewangan; Chinese: 财政部; Tamil: நிதி அமைச்சு) is a ministry of the Government of Singapore responsible for managing the fiscal policies and the structure of the economy of Singapore.

The Ministry of Public Action and Accounts (French: Ministère de l'Action et des Comptes publics) is a ministry of the Government of France. It was created by President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, when he split the Ministry of Finance and the Economy into the Ministry of the Budget, Public Accounts and Civil Administration and the Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Employment. Éric Woert

Minority discount is an economic concept reflecting the notion that a partial ownership interest may be worth less than its proportional share of the total business. The concept applies to equities with voting power because the size of voting position provides additional benefits or drawbacks. For example, ownership of a 51% share in the business is usually worth more than 51% of its equ

Mischler Financial Group is the American boutique investment bank and brokerage that became the financial industry's first firm owned and operated by Service-Disabled Veterans.

Mismarking in securities valuation takes place when the value that is assigned to securities does not reflect what the securities are actually worth, due to intentional fraudulent mispricing. Mismarking misleads investors and fund executives about how much the securities in a securities portfolio managed by a trader are worth (the securities' net asset value, or NAV), and thus misreprese

Mitigation banking is a market-based system of debits and credits (used primarily in the United States as part of its "no net loss" policy) that involves restoration, creation, or enhancement of wetlands to compensate for unavoidable impacts to a wetland in another location. It involves a system of mitigation banks, sites where projects to restore, create, or enhance wetlands can be carr

In finance, model risk is the risk of loss resulting from using insufficiently accurate models to make decisions, originally and frequently in the context of valuing financial securities.

The Modigliani–Miller theorem (of Franco Modigliani, Merton Miller) is an influential element of economic theory; it forms the basis for modern thinking on capital structure. The basic theorem states that in the absence of taxes, bankruptcy costs, agency costs, and asymmetric information, and in an efficient market, the enterprise value of a firm is unaffected by how that firm is finance

A money center bank (also written money-center bank) is a bank or bank holding company that is a particular kind of high-end commercial bank: located in a major financial center such as New York or San Francisco, its lending operations are financed by borrowings from other banks or by issuing bonds. Money center banks tend to engage in a number of different or related businesses, such as

A money market account (MMA) or money market deposit account (MMDA) is a deposit account that pays interest based on current interest rates in the money markets. The interest rates paid are generally higher than those of savings accounts and transaction accounts; however, some banks will require higher minimum balances in money market accounts to avoid monthly fees and to earn interest.

Moneycorp is a British payment company that provides foreign exchange and global payment services to individual and corporate customers. The company was founded in London in 1979. Its clients include individuals, corporations, and other financial institution. It has a branches in the United Kingdom, North America, Europe, Asia and a number of other countries.

In finance, moneyness is the relative position of the current price (or future price) of an underlying asset (e.g., a stock) with respect to the strike price of a derivative, most commonly a call option or a put option. Moneyness is firstly a three-fold classification:

In mathematical finance, a Monte Carlo option model uses Monte Carlo methods to calculate the value of an option with multiple sources of uncertainty or with complicated features. The first application to option pricing was by Phelim Boyle in 1977 (for European options). In 1996, M. Broadie and P. Glasserman showed how to price Asian options by Monte Carlo. An important development was

Monte Carlo methods are used in corporate finance and mathematical finance to value and analyze (complex) instruments, portfolios and investments by simulating the various sources of uncertainty affecting their value, and then determining the distribution of their value over the range of resultant outcomes. This is usually done by help of stochastic asset models. The advantage of Monte C

In economics, a moral hazard is a situation where an economic actor has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it will not bear the full costs associated with that risk. For example, when a corporation is insured, it may take on higher risk knowing that its insurance will pay the associated costs. A moral hazard may occur where the actions of the risk-taking party change t

In the United States, a mortgage note (also known as a real estate lien note or borrower's note) is a promissory note secured by a specified mortgage loan.

Mortgage underwriting is the process a lender uses to determine if the risk (especially the risk that the borrower will default

In finance, mortgage yield is a measure of the yield of mortgage-backed bonds. It is also known as cash flow yield. The mortgage yield, or cash flow yield, of a mortgage-backed bond is the monthly compounded discount rate at which the net present value of all future cash flows from the bond will be equal to the present price of the bond.

Mossack Fonseca & Co. (Spanish pronunciation: [moˈsak fonˈseka]) was a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider. At one time it was the world's fourth-largest provider of offshore financial services. From its establishment in 1977 until the publication of the Panama Papers in April 2016, the company remained mostly obscured from public attention, even though it was a major firm

The MSCI KLD 400 Social Index was launched in 1990 and is designed to help socially conscious investors weigh social and environmental factors in their investment choices.

N-Shares (Chinese: N股) refers to Chinese companies listed on the NYSE, NASDAQ, or the NYSE MKT. The term stands for New York. They may or may not be incorporated in China, but they have their main business operations in mainland China. Most of them are incorporated in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Nevada or Delaware. If they have been incorporated in mainland C

A naked option or uncovered option is an options strategy where the options contract writer (i.e., the seller) does not hold the underlying asset to cover the contract in case of assignment (like in a covered option). Nor does the seller hold any option of the same class on the same underlying asset that could protect against potential losses (like in an options spread). A naked option i

Nation branding aims to measure, build and manage the reputation of countries (closely related to place branding). In the book Diplomacy in a Globalizing World: Theories and Practices, the authors define nation branding as "the application of corporate marketing concepts and techniques to countries, in the interests of enhancing their reputation in international relations." Many nations

National Automated Clearing House, introduced by National Payments Corporation of India, is a centralised clearing service that aims at providing interbank high volume, low value transactions that are repetitive and periodic in nature. Offering credit and debit service to corporates, banks, and financial institutions, the service, aimed at integrating all regional ECS into one National

The National Development Fund of Iran (NDFI; Persian: صندوق توسعه ملی) is Iran's sovereign wealth fund. It was founded in 2011 to supplement the Oil Stabilization Fund. NDFI is independent of the government's budget. Based on Article 84 of the Fifth Five-year Socio-Economic Development Plan (2010–2015), the National Development Fund was established to transform oil and gas revenues to pr

NAV (Net Asset Value) lending is a form of fund-level financing where loans are secured by the value of a private equity fund’s investments rather than the uncalled capital commitments of limited partners (LPs). NAV-based credit facilities provide liquidity to private equity funds by allowing them to borrow against the underlying portfolio. These facilities differ from subscription line

Negative equity is a deficit of owner's equity, occurring when the value of an asset used to secure a loan is less than the outstanding balance on the loan. In the United States, assets (particularly real estate, whose loans are mortgages) with negative equity are often referred to as being "underwater", and loans and borrowers with negative equity are said to be "upside down".

A neobank is a type of direct bank that operates exclusively using online banking without traditional physical branches. In contrast to direct banks, in many cases, neobanks do not have their own banking licenses, and instead rely on partner banks. They typically have lower operational costs, which can sometimes result in lower fees and more competitive interest rates.

Neptune's Brood is a science fiction novel by British author Charles Stross, set in the same universe as Saturn's Children, but thousands of years later and with all new characters.

In corporate finance, net operating profit after tax (NOPAT) is a company's after-tax operating profit for all investors, including shareholders and debt holders. NOPAT is used by analysts and investors as a precise and accurate measurement of profitability to compare a company's financial results across its history and against competitors.

Net present value (NPV), also known as net present worth (NPW) is a method for assessing whether future amounts of money are worth more or less than the cost of an investment made today. It is widely used in finance, economics, and project evaluation to judge whether a planned activity is expected to create value. NPV works by converting future cash flows into their “present value,” reco

Net volatility refers to the volatility implied by the price of an option spread trade involving two or more options. Essentially, it is the volatility at which the theoretical value of the spread trade matches the price quoted in the market, or, in other words, the implied volatility of the spread.

A non-banking financial institution (NBFI) or non-bank financial company (NBFC) is a financial institution that is not legally a bank; it does not have a full banking license or is not supervised by a national or international banking regulatory agency. NBFC facilitate bank-related financial services, such as investment, risk pooling, contractual savings, and market brokering. Examples

A non-performing loan (NPL) or non-performing asset (NPA) is a bank loan that is subject to late repayment or is unlikely to be repaid by the borrower in full. Non-performing loans represent a major challenge for the banking sector, as they reduce profitability. They are often claimed to prevent banks from lending more to businesses and consumers, which in turn slows economic growth, alt

In international law, odious debt, also known as illegitimate debt, is a legal theory that says that the national debt incurred by a despotic regime should not be enforceable. Such debts are, thus, considered by this doctrine to be personal debts of the government that incurred them and not debts of the state. In some respects, the concept is analogous to the invalidity of contracts sign

The official cash rate (OCR) is the term used in Australia and New Zealand for the bank rate and is the rate of interest which the central bank charges on overnight loans between commercial banks. This allows the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to adjust the interest rates that apply in each country's economy. The OCR cannot be changed by transactions betwee

An offshore bank is a bank that is operated and regulated under international banking license (often called offshore license), which usually prohibits the bank from establishing any business activities in the jurisdiction of establishment. Due to less regulation and transparency, accounts with offshore banks were often used to hide undeclared income. Since the 1980s, jurisdictions that p

The term "offshore company" or "offshore corporation" is used in at least two distinct and different ways. An offshore company may be a reference to:

Offshore investment is the keeping of money in a jurisdiction other than one's country of residence. Offshore jurisdictions are used to pay less tax in many countries by large and small-scale investors. Poorly regulated offshore domiciles have served historically as havens for tax evasion, money laundering, or to conceal or protect illegally acquired money from law enforcement in the inv

OneChicago was a US-based all-electronic futures exchange with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. The exchange offered approximately 12,509 single-stock futures (SSF) products with names such as IBM, Apple and Google. All trading was cleared through Options Clearing Corporation (OCC). The OneChicago exchange closed in September 2020.

An operating partner is a title used by venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms to describe a role dedicated to working with privately held companies to increase value. The role was created by large-capitalization private equity groups when the importance of driving corporate change to add value increased as sellers became more sophisticated and financial engineering less cent

In financial markets, an option naming convention is a method of identifying which of many possible options is being quoted or traded.

In finance, the style or family of an option is the class into which the option falls, usually defined by the dates on which the option may be exercised. The vast majority of options are either European or American (style) options. These options—as well as others where the payoff is calculated similarly—are referred to as "vanilla options". Options where the payoff is calculated differe

In finance, the time value (TV) (extrinsic or instrumental value) of an option is the premium a rational investor would pay over its current exercise value (intrinsic value), based on the probability it will increase in value before expiry. For an American option this value is always greater than zero in a fair market, thus an option is always worth more than its current exercise value.

Option-adjusted spread (OAS) is the yield spread which has to be added to a benchmark yield curve to discount a security's payments to match its market price, using a dynamic pricing model that accounts for embedded options. OAS is hence model-dependent. This concept can be applied to a mortgage-backed security (MBS), or another bond with embedded options, or any other interest rate deri

Option strategies are the simultaneous, and often mixed, buying or selling of one or more options that differ in one or more of the options' variables. Call options, simply known as Calls, give the buyer a right to buy a particular stock at that option's strike price. Opposite to that are Put options, simply known as Puts, which give the buyer the right to sell a particular stock at the

Organizational economics (also referred to as economics of organization) involves the use of economic logic and methods to understand the existence, nature, design, and performance of organizations, especially managed ones.

Ortigas Center (also known as the Ortigas Central Business District or Ortigas CBD) is a central business district located within the joint boundaries of Pasig, Mandaluyong, and Quezon City, within Metro Manila in the Philippines. With an area of more than 100 hectares (250 acres), it is Metro Manila's second most important business district after the Makati Central Business District. It

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to corporate finance:

Over-the-counter (OTC) or off-exchange trading or pink sheet trading is done directly between two parties, without the supervision of an exchange. It is contrasted with exchange trading, which occurs via exchanges. A stock exchange has the benefit of facilitating liquidity, providing transparency, and maintaining the current market price. In an OTC trade, the price is not necessarily pub

An overnight indexed swap (OIS) is an interest rate swap (IRS) over some given term, e.g. 10Y, where the periodic fixed payments are tied to a given fixed rate while the periodic floating payments are tied to a floating rate calculated from a daily compounded overnight rate over the floating coupon period. The OIS term is not overnight; it is the underlying reference rate that is an over

The overnight market is the component of the money market involving the shortest term loan. The overnight market is primarily used by banks and other financial institutions. Lenders agree to lend borrowers funds only "overnight", i.e., the borrower must repay the borrowed funds plus interest at the start of business the next day. Given the short period of the loan, the interest rate cha

The term P chip (Chinese: P股) refers to Chinese companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange which are incorporated in the British Overseas Territories of the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands with operations in mainland China, and are run by private sector Chinese businessmen. During the 2008 financial crisis, P chips showed a dramatic increase in the rate of ba

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.

The Republic of Panama is one of the oldest and best-known tax havens in the Caribbean, as well as one of the most established in the region. Panama has had a reputation for tax avoidance since the early 20th century, and Panama has been cited repeatedly in recent years as a jurisdiction which does not cooperate with international tax transparency initiatives.

The Panama Papers (Spanish: Papeles de Panamá) are 11.5 million leaked documents (2.6 terabytes of data) published from April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. These documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, the former Panamanian offshore law firm and corporate service provider Mo

The Pandora Papers are 11.9 million leaked documents with 2.9 terabytes of data that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published beginning on 3 October 2021. The leak exposed the secret offshore accounts of 35 world leaders, including current and former presidents, prime ministers, and heads of state as well as more than 100 business leaders, billionaires,

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".

Participation banking is a name given to Islamic banks mainly in Turkey, as well as in the broader MENA region. There are participation banks in Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the UAE and other Gulf countries.

A payday loan is a short-term unsecured loan, often characterized by high interest rates. These loans are typically designed to cover immediate financial needs and are intended to be repaid on the borrower's next payday.

Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as banks, to a customer that enables its owner (the cardholder) to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and make payments by electronic transfer with a payment terminal and access automated teller machines (ATMs). Such cards are known by a variety of names

A payroll tax may be imposed on employers or employees. They are usually calculated as a percentage of the salaries that employers pay their employees. By law, some payroll taxes are the responsibility of the employee and others fall on the employer, but almost all economists agree that the true economic incidence of a payroll tax is unaffected by this distinction, and falls largely or e

In corporate finance, the pecking order theory (or pecking order model) postulates that "firms prefer to finance their investments internally, using retained earnings, before turning to external sources of financing such as debt or equity" - i.e. there is a "pecking order" when it comes to financing decisions. The theory was first suggested by Gordon Donaldson in 1961 and was modified by

Peer-to-peer investing (P2PI) is the practice of investing money in notes issued by borrowers who are requesting a loan without going through a traditional financial intermediary and who are unknown to the investor. P2PI is not to be confused with Peer-to-peer lending (P2PL) which deals with the borrower's part. Investing takes place online via a peer-to-peer lending/investing company. T

Peer-to-peer lending (P2P lending) is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that match lenders with borrowers. Peer-to-peer lending companies often offer their services online, and attempt to operate with lower overhead and provide their services more cheaply than traditional financial institutions. As a result, lenders can earn higher returns

Pension regulation is a legal term encompassing, the set of laws, rules and authoritative standards governing the pension industry, and the procedures needed to enforce them.

The pensions crisis, or pensions time bomb is the predicted difficulty in paying for corporate or government pension benefits in various countries, due to a mismatch between pension obligations and the resources set aside to fund them. The basic difficulty of the pension problem is that institutions must be sustained over far longer than the political planning horizon. Shifting demograph

A performance indicator or key performance indicator (KPI) is a type of performance measurement used to evaluate the success of an organization, activity, project, or process in achieving defined objectives. KPIs provide a focus for strategic and operational improvement, support evidence-based decision-making, and help organizations identify and monitor factors critical to performance.

A perpetual bond, also known colloquially as a perpetual or perp, is a bond with no maturity date, therefore allowing it to be treated as equity, not as debt. Issuers pay coupons on perpetual bonds forever, and they do not have to redeem the principal. Perpetual bond cash flows are, therefore, those of a perpetuity.

In finance, perpetual futures, also known as perpetual swaps or colloquially as perps, are contract agreements to non-optionally buy or sell an asset at an unspecified point in the future. Perpetual futures are cash-settled, and they differ from regular futures in that they lack a pre-specified delivery date and can thus be held indefinitely without the need to roll over contracts as the

Pershing Square Capital Management (Pershing Square) is an American hedge fund based in New York City. It specializes in activist investments, using influence over company management through the purchase of shares and by exerting pressure on management. Pershing Square was founded on January 1, 2004, by Bill Ackman, a hedge fund manager who was a co-founder of the investment firm Gotham

In economics, personal income refers to the total earnings of an individual from various sources such as wages, investment ventures, and other sources of income. It encompasses all the products and money received by an individual.

The Pfandbrief (plural: Pfandbriefe), a mostly triple-A rated German bank debenture, has become the blueprint of many covered bond models in Europe and beyond. The Pfandbrief is collateralized by long-term assets such as property mortgages or public sector loans as stipulated in the Pfandbrief Act. Total volume outstanding in Pfandbriefe was EUR 806 billion as at end-2008. Pfandbrief bon

Phantom debt or zombie debt is a debt that is old, defaulted, or not owed and is somehow still being pursued for collection to be paid by the presumed debtor. It generally refers to debt that is more than 3 years old, is long forgotten about or belonged to someone else – like someone with the same name or a deceased parent. The amount owed can grow to hundreds or thousands of dollars mor

Pin risk occurs when the market price of the underlier of an option contract at the time of the contract's expiration is close to the option's strike price. In this situation, the underlier is said to have pinned. The risk to the writer (seller) of the option is that they cannot predict with certainty whether the option will be exercised or not. So the writer cannot hedge their position

A pitch book, also called a confidential information memorandum, is a marketing presentation (information layout) used by investment banks, entrepreneurs, corporate finance firms, business brokers and other M&A intermediaries advising on the sale or disposal of the shares or assets of a business. It consists of a careful arrangement and analysis of the investment considerations of the cl

The point of sale (POS), or point of purchase (POP), is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice for the customer (which may be a cash register printout), and indicates the options for the customer to make payment. It is also the point at wh

Political risk is a type of risk faced by investors, corporations, and governments that political decisions, events, or conditions will significantly affect the profitability of a business actor or the expected value of a given economic action. Political risk can be understood and managed with reasoned foresight and investment.

The Pooled Income Fund (PIF) is a type of charitable mutual fund or charitable trust that pools the securities or cash separately donated by an individual, a family or a corporation to a charity, which is then invested to provide dividends for both the donor's beneficiary and charity. The donations are irrevocable and tax-deductible and must be from personal assets. Capital gains taxes d

A portfolio manager (PM) is a professional responsible for making investment decisions and carrying out investment activities on behalf of vested individuals or institutions. Clients invest their money for future growth, such as a retirement fund, endowment fund, or education fund. PMs work with a team of analysts and researchers and are responsible for establishing an investment strateg

Portfolio optimization is the process of selecting an optimal portfolio (asset distribution), out of a set of considered portfolios, according to some objective. The objective typically maximizes factors such as expected return, and minimizes costs like financial risk, resulting in a multi-objective optimization problem. Factors being considered may range from tangible (such as assets, l

In finance, a position is the amount of a particular security, commodity or currency held or owned by a person or entity.

Post-money valuation is a way of expressing the value of a company after an investment has been made. This value is equal to the sum of the pre-money valuation and the amount of new equity.

In financial economics and accounting research, post–earnings-announcement drift or PEAD (also named the SUE effect) is the tendency for a stock's cumulative abnormal returns to drift in the direction of an earnings surprise for several weeks (even several months) following an earnings announcement. This phenomenon is one of the oldest and most persistent capital market anomalies, with e

A dual-currency note (DC) pays coupons in the investor's domestic currency with the notional in the issuer's domestic currency. A reverse dual-currency note (RDC) is a note which pays a foreign interest rate in the investor's domestic currency. A power reverse dual-currency note (PRDC) is a structured product where an investor is seeking a better return and a borrower a lower rate by tak

In lending, a pre-approval is the pre-qualification for a loan or mortgage of a certain value range.