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In finance, inflation derivative (or inflation-indexed derivatives) refers to an over-the-counter and exchange-traded derivative that is used to transfer inflation risk from one counterparty to another. See Exotic derivative.

An inflation swap is an over-the-counter derivative in which one party pays a fixed inflation rate and the other pays the realised change in a price index such as CPI, RPI or HICP. Markets trade two main structures: the zero-coupon inflation swap, which settles once at maturity, and the year-on-year inflation swap, which pays periodic coupons. Users include pension funds, insurers and ot

An informal value transfer system (IVTS) is any system, mechanism, or network of people that receives money for the purpose of making the funds or an equivalent value payable to a third party in another geographic location, whether or not in the same form. Informal value transfers generally take place outside of the conventional banking system through non-bank financial institutions or o

An initial coin offering (ICO) or token sale is a form of capital raising in which a project issues and sells digital tokens using blockchain technology, typically in exchange for cryptocurrency or fiat currency. The tokens may grant access to a product or service, represent participation rights within a network, or function as speculative digital assets traded on cryptocurrency markets.

An Initial exchange offering (IEO) is the cryptocurrency exchange equivalent to a stock launch or Initial public offering (IPO). An IEO is the process of digital asset (e.g. coins or tokens) procurement through an established exchange for the purpose of raising capital for start-up companies. Exchanges act as a middleman between investors and the startup, profiting from fees generated by

Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In many countries, trading based on insider information is illegal. The rationale for this prohibition of insider trading differs between countries and regions. Some view it as unfair to other investors in the market w

In the United Kingdom, only an authorised or licensed insolvency practitioner (IP) may be appointed in relation to formal insolvency procedures.

Instant payment (sometimes referred to as real-time payment or faster payment) is a method of electronic funds transfer, allowing for almost immediate transfer of money between bank accounts. This was in contrast to the previous transfer times of one to three business days that had been in place until the mid-2010s.

Instinet Incorporated is an institutional, agency-model broker that also serves as the independent equity trading arm of its parent, Nomura Group. It executes trades for asset management firms, hedge funds, insurance companies, mutual funds and pension funds. Headquartered in New York City, the company provides sales trading services and trading technologies such as the Newport EMS, algo

Intangible asset finance (IP finance) is the branch of finance that uses intangible assets such as intellectual property (legal intangible) and reputation (competitive intangible) to gain access to credit. Like other areas of finance, intangible asset finance is concerned with the interdependence of value, risk, and time.

An Inter-dealer broker (IDB) is specialist financial intermediary that facilitates transactions between broker-dealers, dealer banks and other financial institutions rather than private individuals.

The interbank lending market is a market in which banks lend funds to one another for a specified term. Most interbank loans are for maturities of one week or less, the majority being overnight. Such loans are made at the interbank rate (also called the overnight rate if the term of the loan is overnight). A sharp decline in transaction volume in this market was a major contributing fac

In finance and economics, interest is payment from a debtor or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distinct from a fee which the borrower may pay to the lender or some third party. It is also distinct from dividend which is paid by a company to its share

In finance, an interest rate cap is a type of interest rate derivative in which the buyer receives payments at the end of each period in which the interest rate exceeds the agreed strike price. An example of a cap would be an agreement to receive a payment for each month the LIBOR rate exceeds 2.5%.

In finance, an interest rate derivative (IRD) is a derivative whose payments are determined through calculation techniques where the underlying benchmark product is an interest rate, or set of different interest rates. There are a multitude of different interest rate indices that can be used in this definition.

An interest rate future is a futures contract (a financial derivative) with an interest-bearing instrument as the underlying asset. It is a particular type of interest rate derivative. Examples include Treasury-bill futures, Treasury-bond futures and Eurodollar futures.

Interest rate parity is a no-arbitrage condition representing an equilibrium state under which investors compare interest rates available on bank deposits in two countries. The fact that this condition does not always hold allows for potential opportunities to earn riskless profits from covered interest arbitrage. Two assumptions central to interest rate parity are capital mobility and p

Interest rate risk refers to the potential for financial loss due to fluctuations in interest rates. It will, in turn, impact differently re market risk, i.e. impacting instruments such as Bonds, re banks and re insurers.

In finance, an interest rate swap (IRS) is an interest rate derivative (IRD). It involves exchange of interest rates between two parties. In particular it is a "linear" IRD and one of the most liquid, benchmark products. It has associations with forward rate agreements (FRAs), and with zero coupon swaps (ZCSs).

An interest-free economy or interest free economy is an economy that does not have pure interest rates.

An intermediary, also known as a middleman or go-between, is defined in various ways, according to context. In law or diplomacy, an intermediary is a third party who offers intermediation services between two parties. In trade or barter, an intermediary acts as a conduit for goods or services offered by a supplier to a consumer, which may include wholesalers, resellers, brokers, and vari

In the theory of capital structure, internal financing or self-financing is using its profits or assets of a company or organization as a source of capital to fund a new project or investment. Internal sources of finance contrast with external sources of finance. The main difference between the two is that internal financing refers to the business generating funds from activities and as

International finance (also referred to as international monetary economics) is the branch of monetary and macroeconomic interrelations between two or more countries. International finance examines the dynamics of the global financial system, international monetary systems, balance of payments, exchange rates, foreign direct investment, and how these topics relate to international trade.

International financial management, also known as international finance, is the management of finance in an international business environment; that is, trading and making money through the exchange of foreign currency. The international financial activities help the organizations to connect with international dealings with overseas business partners- customers, suppliers, lenders etc. I

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are accounting standards issued by the IFRS Foundation and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). They constitute a standardised way of describing a company's financial performance and position so that company financial statements are understandable and comparable across international boundaries. They are particularly relev

The International Financial Services Centre (IFSC; Irish: Lárionad Seirbhísí Airgeadais Idirnáisiúnta) is an area of central Dublin and part of the CBD established in the 1980s as an urban regeneration area and special economic zone (SEZ) on the derelict state-owned former port authority lands of the reclaimed North Wall and George's Dock areas of the Dublin Docklands. The term has beco

International lender of last resort (ILLR) is a facility prepared to act when no other lender is capable or willing to lend in sufficient volume to provide or guarantee liquidity in order to avert a sovereign debt crisis or a systemic crisis. No effective international lender of last resort currently exists.

An International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) is a code that uniquely identifies a security globally for the purposes of facilitating clearing, reporting and settlement of trades. Its structure is defined in ISO 6166. The ISIN code is a 12-character alphanumeric code that serves for uniform identification of a security through normalization of the assigned National Number, whe

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA ) is a trade organization of participants in the market for over-the-counter derivatives. It is headquartered in New York City.

In finance, the intrinsic value of an asset or security is its value as calculated with regard to an inherent, objective measure. As a distinction, the asset's price is determined relative to other similar assets.

In finance, an inverted yield curve is a yield curve in which short-term debt instruments (typically bonds) have a greater yield than longer term bonds. An inverted yield curve is an unusual phenomenon; bonds with shorter maturities generally provide lower yields than longer term bonds.

The Investigation Division of the CBDT, abbreviated as Inv-CBDT, is the revenue enforcement agency of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, Government of India. It functions under the Department of Revenue in the Union Ministry of Finance and is concerned with the collection and administration of, as well as enforcement and prosecution of cases related to, the various direct taxes accruing

An investment advisory is a service that recommends certain securities primed for appreciation, usually through direct management of clients' assets or by way of written publications.

Investment banking is an advisory-based financial service primarily for corporations, governments, and institutional investors. Traditionally associated with corporate finance, such a bank might assist in raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of debt or equity securities. An investment bank may also provide services to companies involve

Investment performance is the return on an investment portfolio, which can contain a single asset or multiple assets.

Investment style,

An investor is a person or entity that allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property. Types of investments include equity, debt, securities, real estate, infrastructure, currency, commodity, token, derivatives such as put and call optio

Investor relations (IR) is a "strategic management responsibility that is capable of integrating finance, communication, marketing and securities law compliance to enable the most effective two-way communication between a company, the financial community, and other constituencies, which ultimately contributes to a company's securities achieving fair valuation." as defined by National Inv

IOTA is an open-source distributed ledger and cryptocurrency designed for the Internet of things (IoT). It uses a directed acyclic graph to store transactions on its ledger, motivated by a potentially higher scalability over blockchain based distributed ledgers. IOTA does not use miners to validate transactions, instead, nodes that issue a new transaction on the network must approve two

The Irish bank strikes between 1966 and 1976 were three strikes of about a year's total duration which closed down all the clearing banks in Ireland. The strikes provided economists with a unique opportunity to study the functioning of a modern economy without access to bank deposits. Despite the significantly reduced access to bank deposits, the economy continued to grow, with cheques b

In finance an iron butterfly, also known as the ironfly, is the name of an advanced, neutral-outlook, options trading strategy that involves buying and holding four different options at three different strike prices. It is a limited-risk, limited-profit trading strategy that is structured for a larger probability of earning smaller limited profit when the underlying stock is perceived to

The iron condor is an options trading strategy utilizing two vertical spreads – a put spread and a call spread with the same expiration and four different strikes. A long iron condor is essentially selling both sides of the underlying instrument by simultaneously shorting the same number of calls and puts, then covering each position with the purchase of further out of the money call(s)

The ISDA Master Agreement, published by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), is the most commonly used master service agreement for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives transactions internationally. It is part of a framework of documents, designed to enable OTC derivatives to be documented fully and flexibly. The framework consists of a master agreement, a schedule,

Islamic banking, Islamic finance (Arabic: مصرفية إسلامية masrifiyya 'islamia), or Sharia-compliant finance is banking or financing activity that complies with Sharia (Islamic law) and its practical application through the development of Islamic economics. Some of the modes of Islamic finance include mudarabah (profit-sharing and loss-bearing), wadiah (safekeeping), musharaka (joint ventu

The demand for Islamic banking and finance has grown in Canada due to the growing Muslim population in the country who want to avoid riba and other financial practices in violation of sharia. These sharia-compliant financial products are not offered by main financial institutions and, thus, small financial companies are major players. However, major companies like WealthSimple are start

Islamic banking in Malaysia began in September 1963 when Perbadanan Wang Simpanan Bakal-Bakal Haji (PWSBH) was established. PWSBH was set up as an institution for Muslims to save for their Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) expenses. In 1969, PWSBH merged with Pejabat Urusan Haji to form Lembaga Urusan dan Tabung Haji (now known as Lembaga Tabung Haji).

Islamic finance products, services and contracts are financial products and services and related contracts that conform with Sharia (Islamic law). Islamic banking and finance has its own products and services that differ from conventional banking. These include Mudharabah (profit sharing), Wadiah (safekeeping), Musharakah (joint venture), Murabahah (cost plus finance), Ijar (leasing), Ha

ISO 10962, known as Classification of Financial Instruments (CFI), is a six-letter-code used in the financial services industry to classify and describe the structure and function of a financial instrument (in the form of security or contract) as part of the instrument reference data. It is an international standard approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). CF

Israel Bonds, the commonly known name of Development Corporation for Israel (DCI), is the U.S. underwriter of debt securities issued by the State of Israel. DCI is headquartered in New York City and is a broker-dealer and member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Dan Naveh is president and CEO.

Israel Alexander Englander (born September 30, 1948) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager. In 1989, he founded his hedge fund, Millennium Management, with Ronald Shear. The fund was started with US$35 million, and as of July 2026 had US$92 billion in assets under management.

J.P. Morgan & Co. was an American financial institution specialized in investment banking, asset management and private banking founded by financier J. P. Morgan in 1871. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the company is now a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase, the largest banking institution in the world by market capitalization. The company has been historically referred to as th

Jane Street Capital is an American electronic market making company headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. It is one of the largest market making firms in the United States along with Virtu and Citadel Securities. It employs approximately 3,000 people across its global offices, and trades across more than twenty countries.

A jelly roll, or simply a roll, is an options trading strategy that captures the cost of carry of the underlying asset while remaining otherwise neutral. It is often used to take a position on dividends or interest rates, or to profit from mispriced calendar spreads.

In finance, Jensen's alpha (or Jensen's Performance Index, ex-post alpha) is used to determine the abnormal return of a security or portfolio of securities over the theoretical expected return. It is a version of the standard alpha based on a theoretical performance instead of a market index.

Jerry W. Markham is a professor at the Florida International University College of Law, and a legal scholar on business organizations and securities regulation in the United States. He has been quoted or cited as an expert on the regulation of financial and commodities markets in a wide variety of news sources, and his three-volume collection, A Financial History of the United States, ha

Joseph Jay Ritchie (January 1, 1947 – February 22, 2022), better known as Joe Ritchie, was an options and commodities trader. In 1977, he founded Chicago Board Crushers, later renamed Chicago Research and Trading (CRT) and served as the head of Fox River Partners at the time of his death. Ritchie had ten children and was married to Sharon Ritchie for over fifty years.

John Law (pronounced [lɑs] in French in the traditional approximation of Laws, the colloquial Scottish form of the name; 21 April 1671 – 21 March 1729) was a Scottish-French economist and financier. He rose to power in France where he created a novel financial scheme for French public finances known as Law's System (French: le système de Law) with two institutions at its core, John Law's

The Jordanian dinar (Arabic: دينار أردني; code: JOD; symbol: د.أ, unofficially abbreviated as JD) has been the currency of Jordan since 1950. The Central Bank of Jordan commenced operations in 1965 and became the sole issuer of Jordanian currency and central bank, in place of the Jordan Currency Board.

Jurisdictional arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of discrepancies between competing legal jurisdictions. It takes its name from arbitrage, the practice in finance of purchasing a good at a lower price in one market and selling it at a higher price in another. Just as in financial arbitrage, the attractiveness of jurisdiction arbitrage depends largely on its transaction costs,

The Kagi chart (Japanese: かぎ足, romanized: kagiashi) is a chart used for tracking price movements and to make decisions on purchasing stock. It differs from traditional stock charts such as the Candlestick chart by being mostly independent of time. This feature aids in producing a chart that reduces random noise.

Kalshi Inc. is a prediction market platform based in Manhattan, New York City, that launched in July 2021. The platform is used primarily for sports betting, which constitutes more than 90% of site activity and 89% of revenue in 2025. Analysts describe activity on the platform as "heavily tied to the sports calendar". Individuals can place bets on other future outcomes, including economi

Kantox Ltd is a multinational fintech company that offers Currency Management Automation software for corporate clients. Their software automates the pre-trade, trade, and post-trade stages of the corporate foreign exchange (FX) workflow.

Khanani & Kalia International (Private) Limited (abbreviated KKI) was a Pakistani foreign exchange company that operated from 1992 to 2008, when it was closed down by the government of Pakistan for being involved in money laundering. Blocked by U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), it was found to have also involved in the illicit international moveme

KlickEx is a New Zealand fintech company that provides a payment system for domestic, low value electronic foreign exchange transactions to Polynesian countries using a smart market retail system.

Klöckner & Co SE (also known as Klöckner, KlöCo, or KCO) is a producer-independent processor of steel and metal products. With a network of 110 warehousing and processing locations, Klöckner & Co supplies over 60,000 customers, mainly in Europe and North America.

Know your customer or know your client (KYC) laws, regulations and guidelines in financial services require regulated businesses and professionals to verify the identity of a customer, and the suitability and risks involved with maintaining a business relationship with them. These procedures fit within the broader scope of anti-money laundering (AML) and counter terrorism financing (CTF)

KodakCoin (stylized KODAKCoin) was a Kodak-branded blockchain cryptocurrency, used to plan payments for licensed photographers. It was also able to generate individualized cryptocurrency for its users through Kodak KashMiner, a Bitcoin-mining computer. Critics characterized Kodak's association with the cryptocurrency as a "desperate money grab."

The Korn–Kreer–Lenssen model (KKL model) is a discrete trinomial model proposed in 1998 by Ralf Korn, Markus Kreer and Mark Lenssen to model illiquid securities and to value financial derivatives on these.

Kraken (legally named Payward, Inc.) is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2011. It is the first cryptocurrency company to obtain a bank charter. In 2025, Kraken began allowing the trading of tokenized equities by non-US customers.

Since the financial crisis, regulation of financial activities is at the center of economic and political events. The crisis has indeed led regulators but also the academic world to ask new questions about the effectiveness of regulation policies. To answer these questions, the French laboratory of excellence on financial regulation (Labex ReFi) was established at the initiative of the C

A labour-sponsored venture capital corporation (LSVCC), known alternately as labour-sponsored investment fund (LSIF) or simply retail venture capital (RVC), is a fund managed by investment professionals that invests in small to mid-sized Canadian companies. The Canadian federal government and some provincial governments offer tax credits to LSVCC investors to promote the growth of such c

In finance, a ladder, also known as a Christmas tree, is a combination of three options of the same type (all calls or all puts) at three different strike prices. A long ladder is used by traders who expect low volatility, while a short ladder is used by traders who expect high volatility. Ladders are in some ways similar to strangles, vertical spreads, condors, or ratio spreads.

LankaPay (formerly LankaClear) national payment network of Sri Lanka which provides the central payment infrastructure to the country's financial sector. Established in April 1, 2002, the organization is owned by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) and all CBSL-licensed commercial banks in the country.

In quantitative finance, a lattice model is a numerical approach to the valuation of derivatives in situations requiring a discrete time model. For dividend paying equity options, a typical application would correspond to the pricing of an American-style option, where a decision to exercise is allowed at the closing of any calendar day up to the maturity. A continuous model, on the othe

In economics, the law of one price (LOOP) states that in the absence of trade frictions (such as transport costs and tariffs), and under conditions of free competition and price flexibility (where no individual sellers or buyers have power to manipulate prices and prices can freely adjust), identical goods sold at different locations should be sold for the same price when prices are expr

Legal risk as a subset of operational risk that comprises the uncertainty associated with a business becoming a subjects of legal liability and obligations as a result of its operation.

In public finance, a lender of last resort (LOLR) is a financial entity, generally a central bank, that acts as the provider of liquidity to a financial institution which finds itself unable to obtain sufficient liquidity in the interbank lending market when other facilities or such sources have been exhausted. It functions as a government guarantee of liquidity to financial institutions

Lender option borrower option or lender's option borrower's option (LOBO) is a long term borrowing instrument available in the United Kingdom. They involve periodic interest re-fixings, which incorporates two linked options:

The loti (plural: maloti) is the currency of the Kingdom of Lesotho. It is subdivided into 100 sente (pl. lisente). It is pegged to the South African rand on a 1:1 basis through the Common Monetary Area, and both are accepted as legal tender within Lesotho. The loti was first issued in 1966, albeit as a non-circulating currency. In 1980, Lesotho issued its first coins denominated in both

The proposed bill Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Bill is officially contained in the United States House of Representatives bill entitled H.R. 4191: Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act of 2009. It is a proposed piece of legislation that was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on December 3, 2009 to assess a tax on US f

A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loans, along with the assets of the acquiring company. The use of debt, which normally has a lower cost of capital than equity, serves to reduce the o

In corporate finance, a leveraged recapitalization is a change of the company's capital structure, usually substitution of debt for equity.

Lewis S. Ranieri (; born 1947) is a former bond trader, and founding partner and current chairman of Ranieri Partners, a real estate firm.

Lightspeed Commerce is a point-of-sale and e-commerce software provider based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 2005 by Dax da Silva, who was its CEO until February 2022. It has offices in Montreal, New York, Ottawa, Toronto, London, Belfast, Amsterdam, Berlin, Geneva, Ghent, Melbourne, Ulyanovsk, Yerevan and Tbilisi. It offers its services to retail, restaurant, and hospit

The Liikanen Report or "Report of the European Commission’s High-level Expert Group on Bank Structural Reform" (known as the "Liikanen Group") is a set of recommendations published in October 2012 by a group of experts led by Erkki Liikanen, governor of the Bank of Finland and ECB council member. On 3 July 2013, by large majority the European Parliament adopted an own initiative report c

A line break chart, also known as a three-line break chart, is a Japanese trading indicator and chart used to analyze the financial markets. Invented in Japan, these charts had been used for over 150 years by traders there before being popularized by Steve Nison in the book Beyond Candlesticks. The chart is made up of vertical blocks or bars called "lines", which indicate the market's di

Liquidity at risk (LaR) is a financial risk measure that estimates the potential net cash outflows an institution may face over a specified time horizon and confidence level. It is designed to quantify the risk that a bank, investment fund, or corporation will be unable to meet its short-term obligations due to unexpected demands on liquidity. The concept is closely related to Value at R

In macroeconomic theory, liquidity preference is the demand for money, considered as liquidity. The concept was first developed by John Maynard Keynes in his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) to explain the determination of the interest rate by the supply and demand for money.

Liquidity risk is a financial risk that for a certain period of time a given financial asset, security or commodity cannot be traded quickly enough in the market without impacting the market price.

This is a table of notable American exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. As of 2020, the number of exchange-traded funds worldwide was over 7,600, representing about 7.74 trillion U.S. dollars in assets. The largest ETF, as of April 2021, was the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE Arca: SPY), with about $353.4 billion in assets. The second-largest was the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF with around $270.

This list covers formal bank stress testing programs, as implemented by major regulators worldwide. It does not cover bank proprietary, internal testing programs.

This is a list of abbreviations used in a business or financial context.

A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies, and other related finance corporations have their headquarters offices. In major cities, financial districts often host skyscrapers and other buildings of architectural importance and are called financial centres; such major centres also include important financial

This is a list of former stock exchanges in the Americas, including North America, South America, and the Caribbean Islands. Year of formation and the year the exchange was acquired, liquidated, or folded are also included. Some of these exchanges remain active as subsidiaries or divisions of other current exchanges (see current stock exchanges in the Americas). See regional stock exchan

This is a list of notable futures exchanges. Those stock exchanges that also offer trading in futures contracts besides trading in securities are listed both here and the list of stock exchanges.

The following is a list of securities examinations and the organizations that offer them.

This is a list of major stock exchange mergers and acquisitions in the Americas. It also features the name of any resultant stock exchanges from mergers or acquisitions. According to Robert E. Wright of Bloomberg in 2013, historians assert that "rather than exhibiting a trend of constant consolidation, the number of exchanges active across the globe has waxed and waned several times over

A listed investment company (LIC) is an Australian closed-end collective investment scheme similar to investment trusts in the UK and closed-end funds in the United States. Instead of regularly issuing new shares or canceling shares as investors join and leave the fund, investors buy and sell to each other on the ASX. They are traded like other securities on the Australian stock exchange

In corporate finance, a listing refers to the company's shares being on the list (or board) of stock that are publicly listed. Some stock exchanges allow shares of a foreign company to be listed and may allow dual listing, subject to conditions.

Litecoin (abbreviation: LTC) is a cryptocurrency and open-source software project created by Charlie Lee and released in 2011. Its software was derived from Bitcoin's codebase. Litecoin uses a scrypt-based proof-of-work system, targets a block interval of 2.5 minutes, and has a maximum supply of 84 million litecoins.