Industry WIKI

In finance, a spread trade (also known as a relative value trade) is the simultaneous purchase of one security and sale of a related security, called legs, as a unit. Spread trades are usually executed with options or futures contracts as the legs, but other securities are sometimes used. They are executed to yield an overall net position whose value, called the spread, depends on the di

StarkWare Industries is an Israeli software company that specializes in cryptography. It develops zero-knowledge proof technology that compresses information to address the scalability problem of the blockchain, and works on the Ethereum platform.

Stellar, or Stellar Lumens (symbol: XLM), is a cryptocurrency protocol which allows transactions between any pair of currencies.

The sterling area (or sterling bloc, legally scheduled territories) was a group of countries that either adopted or pegged their currencies to the pound sterling.

The Stern family is a Jewish banking family originally from Frankfurt. It traces back to Samuel Hayum Stern (1760–1819), who in the 1780s became a wine merchant in Frankfurt. In 1805, his son, Jacob Samuel Heyum Stern, converted the family business into a bank called Jacob S.H. Stern & Co., which became one of the most prominent banking institutions in Germany.

A stock fund, or equity fund, is a fund that invests in stocks, also called equity securities. Stock funds can be contrasted with bond funds and money funds. Fund assets are typically mainly in stock, with some amount of cash, which is generally quite small, as opposed to bonds, notes, or other securities. This may be a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund. The objective of an equity fun

A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called as shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include securities listed on a public stock exchange as well as stock that is only traded privately, such as shares of private companies that are sold to investors through equity crowdfunding platforms. Invest

In finance, a stock market index future is a cash-settled futures contract on the value of a particular stock market index. The turnover for the global market in exchange-traded equity index futures is notionally valued, for 2008, by the Bank for International Settlements at US$130 trillion.

A stock market simulator is computer software that reproduces behavior and features of a stock market, so that a user may practice trading stocks without financial risk. Paper trading, sometimes also called "virtual stock trading", is a simulated trading process in which would-be investors can practice investing without committing money.

A stock trader or equity trader or share trader, also called a stock investor, is a person or company involved in trading stocks and attempting to profit from the purchase and sale of those securities. Stock traders may be an investor, agent, hedger, arbitrageur, speculator, or stockbroker. Such equity trading in large publicly traded companies may be through a stock exchange. Stock shar

The Stockholm congestion tax (Swedish: Trängselskatt i Stockholm), also referred to as the Stockholm congestion charge, is a congestion pricing system implemented as a tax levied on most vehicles entering and exiting central Stockholm, Sweden. The congestion tax was implemented on a permanent basis on 1 August 2007, after a seven-month trial period between 3 January 2006 and 31 July 200

A stored-value card (SVC) or cash card is a payment card with a monetary value stored on the card itself, not in an external account maintained by a financial institution. This means no network access is required by the payment collection terminals as funds can be withdrawn and deposited straight from the card. Like cash, payment cards can be used anonymously as the person holding the ca

Strahan, Paul & Bates was a London private banking house founded in the 17th century and with a reputation for respectability. The bank failed in 1855 with liabilities eventually estimated at £750,000 (equivalent to £70,000,000 in 2025). The subsequent bankruptcy proceedings revealed that customers' securities had been sold or otherwise disposed of by the partners and the proceeds had be

Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS) is a secure messaging standard developed to serve as a platform for intra-bank and inter-bank applications. It is an Indian standard similar to SWIFT which is the international messaging system used for financial messaging globally.

A structured settlement factoring transaction means a transfer of structured settlement payment rights (including portions of structured settlement payments) made for consideration by means of sale, assignment, pledge, or other form of encumbrance or alienation for consideration. In order for such transfer to be approved, the transfer must comply with Internal Revenue Code section 5891 a

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

Student debt refers to the debt incurred by an individual to pay for education-related expenses. This debt is most commonly assumed to pay for tertiary education, such as university.

The American subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010, contributing to the 2008 financial crisis. It led to a severe economic recession, with millions becoming unemployed and many businesses going bankrupt. The U.S. government intervened with a series of measures to stabilize the financial system, including the Troubled Asset Relie

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 finance, a swap is a derivative in which two parties agree to exchange one stream of cash flows for another, based on some agreed formula. An example is a floating-for-fixed interest rate swap, which calls for (a) payments by one party based on the product of a floating interest rate and a fixed amount, called the notional, in exchange for (b) payments by the counterparty based on the

In finance and economics, systematic risk (in economics often called aggregate risk or undiversifiable risk) is vulnerability to events which affect aggregate outcomes such as broad market returns, total economy-wide resource holdings, or aggregate income. In many contexts, events like earthquakes, epidemics and major weather catastrophes pose aggregate risks that affect not only the dis

T2 is a financial market infrastructure that provides real-time gross settlement (RTGS) of payments, mostly in euros. It is operated by the European Central Bank and is the critical payments infrastructure of the euro area. With turnover in the trillions of euros every day, it is one of the largest payment systems in the world. It is one of three so-called TARGET Services, together with

Tail risk, sometimes called "fat tail risk", is the financial risk of an asset or portfolio of assets moving more than three standard deviations from its current price, above the risk of a normal distribution. Tail risks include low-probability events arising at both ends of a normal distribution curve, also known as tail events. However, as investors are generally more concerned with un

In economics and finance, a Taleb distribution is the statistical profile of an investment which normally provides a payoff of small positive returns, while carrying a small but significant risk of catastrophic losses. The term was coined by journalist Martin Wolf and economist John Kay to describe investments with a "high probability of a modest gain and a low probability of huge losses

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

A tax haven is a term, often used pejoratively, to describe a place with very low tax rates for non-domiciled investors, even if the official rates may be higher.

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

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 &

Tezos is an open-source blockchain that can execute peer-to-peer transactions and serve as a platform for deploying smart contracts. The native cryptocurrency for the Tezos blockchain is the tez (ISO 4217: XTZ; sign: ꜩ). The Tezos network achieves consensus using proof-of-stake. Tezos uses an on-chain governance model that enables the protocol to be amended when upgrade proposals receive

The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism is a non-fiction book written by literary theorist and author Walter Benn Michaels and first published in 1988 by the University of California Press.

The threshold pledge or fund and release system is a way of making a fundraising pledge as a group of individuals, often involving charitable goals or financing the provision of a public good. An amount of money is set as the goal or threshold to reach for the specified purpose and interested individuals will pitch in, but the money at first either remains with the pledgers or is held in

Ticker tape was the earliest electrical dedicated financial communications medium, transmitting stock price information over telegraph lines, in use from around 1870 to 1970. It consisted of a paper strip that ran through a machine called a stock ticker, which printed abbreviated company names as alphabetic symbols followed by numeric stock transaction price and volume information. The t

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

The Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry was a judicial inquiry into allegations of conflict of interest, bribery and misappropriation of funds around computer leasing contracts entered into by the City of Toronto government in 1998 and 1999. It was held concurrently with the Toronto External Contracts Inquiry.

In finance, a total return swap (TRS), total rate of return swap (TRORS), or cash-settled equity swap is a financial contract that transfers both the credit risk and market risk of an underlying asset.

A Totten trust (also referred to as a "Payable on Death" account) is a form of trust in the United States in which one party (the settlor or "grantor" of the trust) places money in a bank account or security with instructions that upon the settlor's death, whatever is in that account will pass to a named beneficiary. For example, a Totten trust arises when a bank account is titled in the

TP ICAP Group plc is a financial services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Its stock is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

Trade in services statistics are economic statistics which detail international trade in services. They received a great deal of focus at the advent of services negotiations which took place under the Uruguay Round, which became part of the General Agreement on Trade in Services, one of the four principal pillars of the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade treaty, also called the "WTO A

A trading room gathers traders operating on financial markets. The trading room is also often called the front office. The terms "dealing room" and "trading floor" are also used, the latter being inspired from that of an open outcry stock exchange. As open outcry is gradually replaced by electronic trading, the trading room becomes the only remaining place that is emblematic of the finan

A transaction account (also called a checking account, cheque account, chequing account, current account, demand deposit account, or share account at credit unions) is a deposit account or bank account held at a bank or other financial institution. It is available to the account owner "on demand" and is available for frequent and immediate access by the account owner or to others as the

In finance, the Treynor reward-to-volatility model (sometimes called the reward-to-volatility ratio or Treynor measure), named after American economist Jack L. Treynor, is a measurement of the returns earned in excess of that which could have been earned on an investment that has no risk that can be diversified (e.g., Treasury bills or a completely diversified portfolio), per unit of mar

TRON is a blockchain network supporting accounts, transactions, and smart contracts. TRX is its native asset, and TRC20 is a common contract token standard. This article introduces its positioning, mechanisms, verification steps, and common misconceptions.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase toxic assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush. It was a component of the government's measures in 2008 to address the subprime mortgage crisis.

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

Tryton is a three-tier high-level general purpose computer application platform on top of which is built an enterprise resource planning (ERP) business solution through a set of Tryton modules.

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.

A turnstile (also called a gateline, baffle gate, automated gate, turn gate in some regions) is a form of gate which allows one person to pass at a time. A turnstile can be configured to enforce one-way human traffic. In addition, a turnstile can restrict passage only to people who insert a coin, ticket, transit pass, security credential, or other method of payment or verification. Mode

In economics, twin crises, also called a balance of payments crisis, are simultaneous crises in banking and currency. The term was introduced in the late 1990s by economists Graciela Kaminsky and Carmen Reinhart after several such crises worldwide.

Twint is a Swiss mobile payment system rolled out nation-wide in 2017. As of 2024, Twint has become ubiquitous in Switzerland, with many stores accepting Twint payments and nearly all banks taking part in the payment system. The app was developed by Monexio, a wholly owned subsidiary of PostFinance, beginning in 2014.

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.

The Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities Directive (Directive 2009/65/EC, "UCITS") is a directive of the European Union (EU) that allows collective investment schemes to operate freely throughout the EU on the basis of a single authorisation from one member state. EU member states are entitled to have additional regulatory requirements for the benefit of inve

Underwriting profit, also called underwriting income, is the profit an insurer makes from underwriting activities after claims and underwriting expenses are accounted for, excluding any investment income.

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an Indian instant payment system and protocol developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in April 11th 2016. The interface facilitates inter-bank peer-to-peer (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions. It is used on mobile devices to instantly transfer funds between two bank accounts using only a unique UPI ID. It runs as an o

In economics, unit of account, sometimes called currency unit or monetary unit, is a standard unit of measurement of the market value of goods, services, and other transactions. Also known as a measure of relative worth and a standard of deferred payment, a unit of account is a necessary prerequisite for the formulation of commercial agreements that involve debt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In finance, a warrant is a security that entitles the holder to buy or sell stock, typically the stock of the issuing company, at a fixed price called the strike price.

WhopperCoin was a cryptocurrency launched by the Russian branch of Burger King as a loyalty program in the summer of 2017. It was primarily notable for being the first issuance of branded cryptocurrency by a major company and the first form of loyalty points that could be traded freely; the BBC noted that Burger King was the "first major corporate brand to issue its own crypto-cash", wit

The WIG20 is a capitalization-weighted stock market index of the twenty largest companies on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Established on April 16, 1994. WIG is an acronym for "Warszawski Indeks Giełdowy", which translates to Warsaw Stock Index in Polish. However, so that no sector would dominate the index, the rule was introduced that there can be a maximum of 5 companies per sector. In th

The World Business Angels Association (WBAA) was an international, not-for-profit organization whose mission was to stimulate the exchange of knowledge and best practices in the field of global angel capital financing for high-growth and innovative startups. It was closed around 2017.

The World Pensions Forum, also called World Pensions & Investments Forum, is a research and policy oriented conference organised by M. Nicolas Firzli, founder of the World Pensions Council (WPC), in partnership with regional and supranational organisations, large public and private institutional investors from G10 countries, the emerging nations of Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia and

The XRP Ledger (XRPL), also called the Ripple Protocol, is a cryptocurrency platform launched in 2012 by Ripple Labs. The XRPL employs the native cryptocurrency known as XRP, and supports tokens, cryptocurrency or other units of value such as frequent flyer miles or mobile minutes.

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.

Zcash is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency which features an encrypted ledger using zero-knowledge proofs.

A zero-coupon inflation swap (ZCIS), also called a zero-coupon inflation-indexed swap (ZCIIS), is a standard derivative product whose payoff depends on the inflation rate realized over a given period of time. The underlying asset is a single consumer price index (CPI).