Industry WIKI

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

A sinking fund is a fund established by an economic entity by setting aside revenue over a period of time to fund a future capital expense, or repayment of a long-term debt.

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.

Slave insurance in the United States became an increasingly significant industry after the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, a federal law which took effect in 1808, prevented any new slaves from being imported to the U.S. Existing slaves, especially skilled workers, therefore became more valuable, and were often rented out to businesses; slave owners insured against the death or lo

A smart card (SC), chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card), is a card used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) chip. Many smart cards include a pattern of metal contacts to electrically connect to the internal chip. Others are contactless, and some are both. Smart cards can provide perso

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.

Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by the British engineer and economist C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made them. To combat what he saw as a chronic deficiency of purchasing power in the economy, Douglas prescribed governm

The social credit system (Chinese: 社会信用体系; pinyin: shèhuì xìnyòng tǐxì) is a national credit rating and blacklist implemented by the government of the People's Republic of China. The social credit system is a broad governance strategy to track businesses, individuals, and government institutions and enhance their perceived trustworthiness rather than a single system. It is based on varyi

Social sorting is understood as the breakdown and categorization of group- or person-related raw data into various categories and segments by data manipulators and data brokers. Social sorting involves the key task of separating one group from the other. These groups can be based on income, education, race, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, derived power (social and political

Solidarity lending is a lending practice where small groups borrow collectively and group members encourage one another to repay. It is an important building block of microfinance.

The South Sea Company was a British joint-stock company founded in January 1711, created as a public-private partnership to consolidate and reduce the cost of the national debt. To generate income, in 1713 the company was granted a monopoly (the Asiento de Negros) to supply enslaved Africans to the islands in the "South Seas" and South America. When the company was created, Britain was i

A Spahn tax is a type of currency transaction tax that is meant to be used for the purpose of controlling exchange-rate volatility. This idea was proposed by Paul Bernd Spahn in 1995.

The Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) is a Federal government body and Investment Promotion Agency constituted under the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The SIFC was established on 20 June 2023 with the stated goal of acting as a "'single window' to facilitate investors, establish cooperation among all Government departments, and fast-track project development." The council cons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A payment surcharge, also known as checkout fee, is an extra fee charged by a merchant when receiving a payment by cheque, credit card, charge card, debit card or an e-money account, but not cash, which at least covers the cost to the merchant of accepting that means of payment, such as the merchant service fee imposed by a credit card company. Retailers generally incur higher costs when

In financial regulation, a suspicious activity report (SAR) or suspicious transaction report (STR) is a report made by a financial institution about suspicious or potentially suspicious activity as required under laws designed to counter money laundering, financing of terrorism and other financial crimes. The criteria for when a report is required vary by country, but in general, a repor

Swift v. Tyson, 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 1 (1842), was a case brought in diversity in the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York on a bill of exchange accepted in New York in which the Supreme Court of the United States determined that United States federal courts that heard cases brought under their diversity jurisdiction under the Judiciary Act of 1789 must apply statutory state

Takaful (Arabic: التكافل, sometimes translated as "solidarity" or mutual guarantee) is a co-operative system of reimbursement or repayment in case of loss, organized as an Islamic or sharia-compliant alternative to conventional insurance, which contains riba (usury) and gharar (excessive uncertainty).

A Talking ATM is a type of automated teller machine (ATM) that provides audible instructions so that persons who cannot read an ATM screen can independently use the machine. All audible information is delivered privately through a standard headphone jack on the face of the machine or a separately attached telephone handset. Information is delivered to the customer either through pre-reco

Tarjeta bip! ("bip! card") is the contactless payment method used in the public transportation system of Red Metropolitana de Movilidad in the metropolitan region of Santiago, Chile.

The tax burden is the level of effective taxation represented as the distribution of tax rates across people, households, sectors, or forms of income by the amount of their income. Tax burdens are commonly summarized as the tax revenue as a share of gross domestic product for different groups; usually as the effective tax rates paid by different income groups as a share of their income o

Tax competition, a form of regulatory competition, exists when governments use reductions in fiscal burdens to encourage the inflow of productive resources or to discourage the exodus of those resources. Often, this means a governmental strategy of attracting foreign direct investment, foreign indirect investment (financial investment), and high value human resources by minimizing the ov

Tax compliance software is software that assists tax compliance, and may cover income tax, corporate tax, VAT, service tax, customs, sales tax, use tax, or other taxes its users may be required to pay. The software automatically calculates a user's tax liabilities to the government, keeps track of all transactions (in case of indirect taxes), keeps track of eligible tax credits, etc. The

A tax shield is the reduction in income taxes that results from taking an allowable deduction from taxable income. For example, because interest on debt is a tax-deductible expense, taking on debt creates a tax shield. Since a tax shield is a way to save cash flows, it increases the value of the business, and it is an important aspect of business valuation.

The Chinese government initiated a fiscal and taxation system reform in 1992, prepared and promulgated in 1993, and finally implemented in 1994. The reform was a large-scale adjustment of the tax distribution system and tax structure between the central and local governments, which was regarded as a milestone in the transition of China's fiscal system from planned economy to market econo

In Algeria, the most important sources of government revenue have been oil and gas royalties.

Due to the absence of the tax code in Argentina, the tax regulation takes place in accordance with separate laws, which, in turn, are supplemented by provisions of normative acts adopted by the executive authorities. The powers of the executive authority include levying a tax on profits, property and added value throughout the national territory. In Argentina, the tax policy is implemen

Taxes in Cyprus are levied by both the central and local governments. Tax revenue stood at 39.2% of GDP in 2012. The most important revenue sources are the income tax, social security, value-added tax and corporate tax, and are all collected by the central government.

Taxation in Estonia consists of state and local taxes. A relatively high proportion of government revenue comes from consumption taxes whilst revenue from capital taxes is one of the lowest in the European Union.

Taxes in Iceland are levied by the state and the municipalities. Property rights are strong and Iceland is one of the few countries where they are applied to fishery management. Taxpayers pay various subsidies to each other, similar to European countries that are welfare states, but the spending is less than in most European countries. Despite low tax rates in relation to European welfar

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.

A telephone card (also telecard, teleca, calling card or phone card for short) is a credit card-size plastic or paper card used to pay for telephone services (often international or long-distance calling). It is not necessary to have the physical card except with a stored-value system; knowledge of the access telephone number to dial and the PIN is sufficient. Standard cards which can be

The Equitable Life Assurance Society (Equitable Life), founded in 1762, is a life insurance company in the United Kingdom. The world's oldest mutual insurer, it pioneered age-based premiums based on mortality rate, laying "the framework for scientific insurance practice and development" and "the basis of modern life assurance upon which all life assurance schemes were subsequently based"

The Great Debasement (1544–1551) was a currency debasement policy introduced in 1544 England under the order of Henry VIII which saw the amount of precious metal in gold and silver coins reduced and in some cases replaced entirely with cheaper base metals such as copper. Overspending by Henry VIII to pay for his lavish lifestyle and to fund foreign wars with France and Scotland are cited

The Security Printing Corporation (Bangladesh) Ltd. (SPCBL; Bengali: দি সিকিউরিটি প্রিন্টিং কর্পোরেশন (বাংলাদেশ) লিমিটেড) is the main printer of banknotes and government postal stamps in Bangladesh.

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

Tornado Cash (also stylized as TornadoCash) is an open source, non-custodial, fully decentralized cryptocurrency tumbler that runs on Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible networks. It offers a service that mixes potentially identifiable or "tainted" cryptocurrency funds with others, so as to obscure the trail back to the fund's original source. This is a privacy tool used in EVM networks

In insurance claims, a total loss or write-off is a situation where the lost value, repair cost or salvage cost of a damaged property exceeds its insured value, and simply replacing the old property with a new equivalent is more cost-effective.

Tracfin (acronym for Traitement du renseignement et action contre les circuits financiers clandestins, "Intelligence Processing and Action Against Clandestine Financial Circuits") is a service of the French Ministry of Finance. It fights money laundering.

A Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) is a trade pact that establishes a framework for expanding trade and resolving outstanding disputes between countries.

Travelex International Limited is a foreign exchange company founded by Lloyd Dorfman and headquartered in Peterborough, United Kingdom. Its main businesses are foreign currency exchange, issuing prepaid credit cards for use by travellers, supplying central banks with foreign currency and global remittance. Travelex operates more than 600 stores and 700 ATMs in over 20 countries.

A treasury is either:

The Department of the Treasury, also known as the Treasury, is the national treasury and financial department of the federal government of Australia. The treasury is responsible for executing economic and fiscal policy, market regulation and the delivery of the federal budget with the department overseeing 16 agencies. The Treasury is one of only two departments that have existed contin

Treasury basis trading is a financial strategy that involves taking offsetting positions in a cash market instrument (typically a U.S. Treasury bond) and its related derivative, such as a Treasury futures contract. The strategy seeks to exploit pricing discrepancies between the two instruments, which are expected to converge over time. It is a specialized form of basis trading applied to

Treasury management (or treasury operations) entails management of an enterprise's financial holdings, focusing on the firm's liquidity, and mitigating its financial, operational and reputational risk.

Triangular arbitrage (also referred to as cross currency arbitrage or three-point arbitrage) is the act of exploiting an arbitrage opportunity resulting from a pricing discrepancy among three different currencies in the foreign exchange market. A triangular arbitrage strategy involves three trades, exchanging the initial currency for a second, the second currency for a third, and the thi

TRX is the native asset of the TRON network, also known as TRONIX. This article covers its positioning, mechanisms, verification checklist, and common misconceptions.

Total System Services, Inc. (TSYS) is an American financial technology company based in Columbus, Georgia, that provides payment processing services, merchant services and related payment services. It also provides reloadable prepaid debit cards and payroll cards, and demand deposit accounts to the underbanked.

The Tuloy Foundation, Inc. is a Philippine charitable organization focused on the marginalized youth. It was founded in 1993 by Marciano G. Evangelista of the Salesians of Don Bosco.

The Turkish economic crisis (Turkish: Türkiye ekonomik krizi) is a financial and economic crisis in Turkey. It is characterized by the Turkish lira (TRY) plunging in value, high inflation, rising borrowing costs, and correspondingly rising loan defaults. The crisis was caused by the Turkish economy's excessive current account deficit and large amounts of private foreign-currency denomina

The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve is a proposed reserve asset, funded by the United States Department of the Treasury's forfeited bitcoin, announced by United States president Donald Trump in March 2025. The creation of the United States Digital Asset Stockpile for non-bitcoin assets was also announced. Trump has previously stated that he wants the United States to become the "crypto capita

UK Government Investments (UKGI) is a company owned by the United Kingdom government which combines the former functions of the Shareholder Executive and UK Financial Investments. UKGI manages a portfolio of businesses, including Channel Four Television Corporation and previously NatWest Group.

The unbanked are adults who do not have their own bank accounts. Along with the underbanked, they may rely on alternative financial services for their financial needs, where these are available.

Unisys Corporation is an American technology company founded in 1986 and headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. The company provides cloud, AI, digital workplace, logistics, and enterprise computing services.

The Emirati dirham (symbol: ; currency code: AED; ;) Arabic: درهم إماراتي, abbreviation: د.إ in Arabic, Dh; is the official currency of the United Arab Emirates. Each dirham is subdivided into 100 fulus (singular is "fils"). It is pegged to the United States dollar at a constant exchange rate of approximately 3.67 AED to 1 USD. In March 2025, the UAE Central Bank announced the creation o

United Kingdom insolvency law regulates companies in the United Kingdom which are unable to repay their debts. While UK bankruptcy law concerns the rules for natural persons, the term insolvency is generally used for companies formed under the Companies Act 2006. Insolvency means being unable to pay debts. Since the Cork Report of 1982, the modern policy of UK insolvency law has been to

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 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

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.

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

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.

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".

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 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

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

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.

WePay is an online payment service provider based in the United States. It provides an integrated and customizable payment solution, through its APIs, to platform businesses such as crowdfunding sites, marketplaces and small business software companies. It also offers partners fraud and risk protection.

The President's Working Group on Financial Markets, known colloquially as the Plunge Protection Team, or "(PPT)" was created by Executive Order 12631, signed on March 18, 1988, by United States President Ronald Reagan.

World, also known as World Network, is a humanity verification project and financial network. It was developed and launched as the cryptocurrency project Worldcoin. Among other organizations, contributors to the project include Tools for Humanity, a company founded in 2019 by Sam Altman, Max Novendstern, and Alex Blania. World's stated mission is to provide a reliable and anonymous way t

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.

ZachXBT, also identified as Zachary Wolk is a pseudonymous American blockchain investigator and open-source intelligence (OSINT) researcher known for independent forensic investigations into cryptocurrency fraud, scams, and thefts. He has been active on X (formerly Twitter) since 2021, publishing detailed investigative threads that trace stolen funds, expose rug pulls, and identify perpe

Susan "Zanny" Minton Beddoes (born July 1967) is a British journalist. She is the editor-in-chief of The Economist. She began working for the newspaper in 1994 as its emerging markets correspondent.

Zolotaya Korona (brand KoronaPay) is a Russian payment system offering various services to individuals through its own online platforms and those of its partners, including banks and retail chains. These services include cash-to-cash transfers, online card-to-cash transfers, online card-to-card transfers, and online and offline loan repayment in the partner network service points.

A zombie bank is a financial institution that has an economic net worth of less than zero but continues to operate because its ability to repay its debts is shored up by implicit or explicit government credit support.