Industry WIKI

3-D Secure (more commonly referred to as 3D Secure or 3DS) is a protocol designed to be an additional security layer for online credit and debit card transactions. The name refers to the "three domains" which interact using the protocol: the merchant/acquirer domain, the issuer domain, and the interoperability domain.

Abdul Hafeez Shaikh (Urdu: عبدالحفیظ شیخ) is a Pakistani economist with international experience in policy making and economic management. He has twice served as the Minister of Finance (in 2010-2013 and 2019-2021). He has also at various times held the portfolios of Minister of Economic Affairs, Revenue, Planning and Development, Statistics, Privatization and Investment.

Ad tracking, also known as post-testing or ad effectiveness tracking, is in-market research that monitors a brand’s performance including brand and advertising awareness, product trial and usage, and attitudes about the brand versus their competition.

The adaptive market hypothesis, as proposed by Andrew Lo is an attempt to reconcile economic theories based on the efficient market hypothesis (which implies that markets are efficient) with behavioral economics, by applying the principles of evolution to financial interactions: competition, adaptation, and natural selection. This view is part of a larger school of thought known as Evolu

The Adelaide Steamship Company was an Australian shipping company, later a diversified industrial and logistics conglomerate. It was formed by a group of South Australian businessmen in 1875. Their aim was to control the transport of goods between Adelaide and Melbourne and profit from the need for an efficient and comfortable passenger service. For its first 100 years, the company's mai

Administered prices are prices of goods set by the internal pricing structures of firms that take into account cost rather than through the market forces of supply and demand and predicted by classical economics. They were first described by institutional economists Gardiner Means and Adolf A. Berle in their 1932 book The Modern Corporation and Private Property. As Means argued in 1972,

In political philosophy, particularly Frankfurt School critical theory, advanced capitalism is the situation that pertains in a society in which the capitalist model has been integrated and developed deeply and extensively and for a prolonged period. The expression advanced capitalism distinguishes such societies from the historical previous forms of capitalism, mercantilism and industri

To finance the build-out of AI data centres during the 2020s, an unprecedented amount of capital has been mobilised in the USA in particular amid a broad competition for global technological supremacy in artificial intelligence. By September 2026, analysis showed AI capital spending was larger and faster than during any previous technological boom. Early AI investment was funded primaril

AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows companies that are smaller, less-developed, or want/need a more flexible approach to governance to float shares with a more flexible regulatory sys

Atlantic Money is a London-headquartered financial technology company that offers international money transfers for a fixed fee. The firm was founded in 2020 and officially launched in 2022 by two Americans, Neeraj Baid and Patrick Kavanagh, both early employees of the listed US financial services company Robinhood.

Audit Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Buidheann-sgrùdaidh na h-Alba) is an independent public body responsible for auditing most of Scotland's public organisations.

The Australian Payments Council is the strategic coordination body for the payments industry. It promotes industry collaboration and engages directly with the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Payments System Board (PSB).

Australian Payments Network Limited (AusPayNet), formerly the Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA) is the self-regulatory body set up by the payments industry to improve the safety, reliability, equity, convenience and efficiency of payment systems in Australia.

The pound (sign: £, £A for distinction) was the currency of Australia from 1910 until 14 February 1966, when it was replaced by the Australian dollar. Like other £sd currencies, it was subdivided into 20 shillings (denoted by s), each of which was subdivided into 12 pence (denoted by d). A slash was used to separate the units.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) is a statutory authority of the Australian Government and the prudential regulator of the Australian financial services industry. APRA was established on 1 July 1998 in response to the recommendations of the Wallis Inquiry. APRA's authority and scope is determined pursuant to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority Act, 1998 (C

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is an independent commission of the Australian Government tasked as the national corporate regulator. ASIC's role is to regulate company and financial services and enforce laws to protect Australian consumers, investors and creditors. ASIC, which reports to the treasurer, was established on 1 July 1998 following recommendations

Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (ASX) is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange. The ASX was formed on 1 April 1987, through incorporation under legislation by the Parliament of Australia as an amalgamation of the six state securities exchanges. It merged with the Sydney Futures Exchange in 2006.

Financial institutions in Australia are only permitted to accept deposits from the public if they are authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs). The ADI’s authority is granted by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) under the Banking Act 1959 (Cth).

"Bancopoli" was the name coined by the Italian press for the finance and banking scandals between July 2005 and January 2006. The Italian Banca Popolare Italiana (BPI), in competition with Dutch ABN AMRO for control of Banca Antonveneta, was given an unfair advantage by Banca d'Italia's (Italy's central bank) president, Antonio Fazio.

Bank account debits tax (BADT or BAD), typically called the bad tax in the media, was an Australian bank transaction tax, levied on customer withdrawals from bank accounts with a cheque facility (both withdrawals made by cheque or by another means, such as EFTPOS).

Bank Australia is an Australian customer-owned bank based in Collingwood, Victoria. The organisation can trace its origins back to 1957, when the CSIRO Co-operative Credit Society was formed. Over succeeding years, mergers among 72 other credit unions and co-operative banks eventually led to the creation of the Members & Education Credit Union (mecu) in 2003, which became Bankmecu in 201

The Bank of China (BOC; Chinese: 中国银行; pinyin: Zhōngguó Yínháng; Portuguese: Banco da China) is a state-owned Chinese multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Beijing, China. It is one of the "big four" banks in China. As of 31 December 2019, it was the second-largest lender in China overall and ninth-largest bank in the world by market capitalization val

A Bank State Branch (often referred to as "BSB") is the name used in Australia for a bank code, which is a branch identifier. The BSB is normally used in association with the account number system used by each financial institution. The structure of the BSB + account number does not permit for account numbers to be transferable between financial institutions. While similar in structure,

Bankcard was a shared brand credit card issued by financial institutions in Australia and New Zealand between 1974 and 2006. It was managed by the Bankcard Association of Australia, a joint venture of Australia's largest banks, and was the nation's first mass market credit card.

Banking in Australia is a central component of the country's financial system and one of the most concentrated banking sectors in the world. As of 2025 the sector contributes 7.5% of GDP and employs 450,000 people.

BBY Ltd was an Australian stock broking, corporate advisory and asset management firm. Prior to its voluntary administration on 18 May 2015, it claimed to be the largest independent stockbroker in Australia and New Zealand by market share. The group provided financial and advisory services to emerging companies and their investors including corporate finance, research, sales & trading, a

Bertrand competition is a model of competition used in economics, named after Joseph Louis François Bertrand (1822–1900). It describes interactions among firms (sellers) that set prices and their customers (buyers) that choose quantities at the prices set. The model was formulated in 1883 by Bertrand in a review of Antoine Augustin Cournot's book Recherches sur les Principes Mathématiqu

In microeconomics, the Bertrand–Edgeworth model of price-setting oligopoly explores what happens when firms compete to sell a homogeneous product (a good for which consumers buy only from the cheapest available seller) but face limits on how much they can supply. Unlike in the standard Bertrand competition model, where firms are assumed to meet all demand at their chosen price, the Bertr

Bidding is an offer (often competitive) to set a price tag by an individual or business for a product or service or a demand that something be done. Bidding is used to determine the cost or value of something.

Big Five is the name colloquially given to the five largest banks that dominate the banking industry of Canada: Bank of Montreal (BMO), Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), and Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD).

A Biodiversity Impact Credit (BIC) is a transferable biodiversity credit designed to reduce global species extinction risk. The underlying BIC metric, developed by academics working at Queen Mary University of London and Bar-Ilan University, is given by a simple formula that quantifies the positive and negative effects that interventions in nature have on the mean long-term survival pro

In marketing, a blind taste test is often used as a tool for companies to compare their brand to another brand. For example, the Pepsi Challenge is a famous taste test that has been run by Pepsi since 1975. Additionally, taste tests are sometimes used as a tool by companies to develop their brand or new products.

BPAY (BPAY Group Holding Pty Ltd) is an Australian electronic bill payment SaaS company which facilitates payments made through a financial institution's online, mobile or telephone banking facility to organisations which are registered BPAY billers.

Brand equity, in marketing, is the worth of a brand in and of itself – i.e., the social value of a well-known brand name. The owner of a well-known brand name can generate more revenue simply from brand recognition, as consumers perceive the products of well-known brands as better than those of lesser-known brands.

British banking law refers to banking law in the United Kingdom, to control the activities of banks.

British Business Bank plc is the United Kingdom government’s economic development bank. It supports smaller businesses’ access to debt and equity finance by working through accredited lenders and fund managers rather than lending directly to most firms. It is wholly owned by HM Government and is headquartered in Sheffield, England.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is a type of short-term debt financing that allows consumers to make purchases while only initially paying for a portion of their value, postponing payment of the remainder of the debt until a future date, or dividing it into a series of installment payments. BNPL is generally structured like a hire purchase or installment plan money lending process that involve

In economics, capital goods or capital are "those durable produced goods that are in turn used as productive inputs for further production" of goods and services. A typical example is the machinery used in a factory. At the macroeconomic level, "the nation's capital stock includes buildings, equipment, software, and inventories during a given year." Capital is a broad economic concept re

Islamic capitalism was active during the Islamic Golden Age and Arab Agricultural Revolution, where an early market economy and form of merchant capitalism took root between the 8th and 12th centuries. A vigorous monetary economy was based on a widely-circulated currency (the dinar) and the integration of monetary areas that were previously independent. Business techniques and forms of b

Card schemes are payment networks linked to payment cards, such as debit or credit cards, of which a bank or any other eligible financial institution can become a member. By becoming a member of the scheme, the member then gets the possibility to issue cards or acquire merchants operating on the network of that card scheme.

CDK Global Inc. is an American multinational corporation based in Austin, Texas, providing data and technology to the automotive, heavy truck, recreation, and heavy equipment industries.

A chief economist is a single-position job class having primary responsibility for the development, coordination, and production of economic and financial analysis. It is distinguished from the other economist positions by the broader scope of responsibility encompassing the planning, supervision, and coordination of the economic research.

Cision Ltd. is a public relations and earned media software company and services provider. The company is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Cision offers a portfolio of services, including PRNewswire, PRWeb, Brandwatch, and Canada Newswire.

The Cola wars are the long-time rivalry between soft drink producers The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, who have engaged in mutually targeted marketing campaigns for the direct competition between each company's product lines, especially their flagship colas, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Beginning in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the competition escalated until it became known as the cola w

The Committee on Capital Markets Regulation is an independent and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) research organization financed by contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations.

Community capitalism is an approach to capitalism that places a priority on the well-being and sustainability of the community as a whole. The community could be a metropolitan area, region, or an entire country.

A company is a legal entity representing an association of legal persons with a shared objective, such as generating profit or benefiting society. Depending on the jurisdiction, companies can take on various forms, including voluntary associations, nonprofit organizations, business entities, financial entities, banks, and educational institutions. Companies have evolved to share common l

In economics, competition is a scenario where different economic firms are in contention to obtain goods that are limited by varying the elements of the marketing mix: price, product, promotion and place. In classical economic thought, competition causes commercial firms to develop new products, services and technologies, which would give consumers greater selection and better products.

In business, a competitive advantage is an attribute that allows an organization to outperform its competitors.

Competitive equilibrium (also called: Walrasian equilibrium) is a concept of economic equilibrium, introduced by Kenneth Arrow and Gérard Debreu in 1951, appropriate for the analysis of commodity markets with flexible prices and many traders, and serving as the benchmark of efficiency in economic analysis. It relies crucially on the assumption of a competitive environment where each trad

Competitive heterogeneity is a concept from strategic management that examines why industries do not converge on one best way of doing things. In the view of strategic management scholars, the microeconomics of production and competition combine to predict that industries will be composed of identical firms offering identical products at identical prices.

The Competitiveness Policy Council was an independent federal advisory committee chartered in 1988 to advise the president and the Congress on more effective policies to promote U.S. competitiveness. The council had a unique quadrapartite membership composed of representatives from business, labor, government, and the public.

Competitive analysis in marketing and strategic management is the assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. This analysis provides both an offensive and defensive strategic context to identify opportunities and threats. Profiling combines all of the relevant sources of competitor analysis into one framework in the support of efficient and effective

In oligopoly theory, conjectural variation is the belief that one firm has an idea about the way its competitors may react if it varies its output or price. The firm forms a conjecture about the variation in the other firm's output that will accompany any change in its own output.

A consumer complaint or customer complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction concerning a product, service, or consumption experience. Consumer complaint behavior may include communicating dissatisfaction directly to a seller, discussing the experience with other consumers, or seeking assistance from a third party.

In competition law, cornering the market consists of obtaining sufficient control of a particular stock, commodity, human capital or other asset in an attempt to reduce competition.

The cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living for an individual or a household. Cost-of-living calculations are also used to compare the cost of maintaining a given standard of living across different geographic areas. Differences in the cost of living between locations can be measured using purchasing power parity rates.

Cost–benefit analysis (CBA), sometimes also called benefit–cost analysis, is a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. It is used to determine options which provide the best approach to achieving benefits while preserving savings in, for example, transactions, activities, and functional business requirements. A CBA may be used to compare completed

Credit (from Latin creditum, "loan") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but promises either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date. The resources provided by the first party can be either prope

Crypto: The Game is a browser-based interactive survival game that combines blockchain mechanics with multiplayer elimination challenges.

Currency war, also known as competitive devaluations, is a condition in international affairs where countries seek to gain a trade advantage over other countries by causing the exchange rate of their currency to fall in relation to other currencies. As the exchange rate of a country's currency falls, exports to other countries become more competitive, and imports into the country become

In sales, commerce, and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product, or an idea, obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or an exchange for money or some other valuable consideration.

A customs and monetary union is a type of trade bloc which is composed of a customs union and a currency union. The participant countries have both common external trade policy and share a single currency.

The Darlington Economic Campus (DEC), dubbed Number 11 North and Treasury North, is a multi-department government hub in Darlington in the North East of England.

In economics, deadweight loss is the loss of societal economic welfare due to production/consumption of a good at a quantity where marginal benefit (to society) does not equal marginal cost (to society). In other words, there are either goods being produced despite the cost of doing so being larger than the benefit, or additional goods are not being produced despite the fact that the ben

Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money borrowed or otherwise withheld from another party, the creditor. Debt may be owed by a sovereign state or country, local government, company, or an individual. Commercial debt is generally subject to contractual terms regarding the amount and timing of repayments of principal and interest. Loans, bonds, notes, and mo

The Debt Management Office (DMO) of the United Kingdom is the executive agency responsible for debt and cash management for the UK Government, lending to local authorities and managing certain public sector funds.

Decartelization is the transition of a national economy from monopoly control by groups of large businesses, known as cartels, to a free market economy. This change rarely arises naturally, and is generally the result of regulation by a governing body with the authority to decide what structures are permissible.

Dhanendra Kumar (1946-2026) was a civil servant who was the first chair of Competition Commission of India (CCI). Kumar formerly served as executive director at World Bank.

Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread. The theory was popularized by Everett Rogers in his book Diffusion of Innovations, first published in 1962. Rogers argues that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the participants in a social system. Th

In industrial economics, double marginalization occurs when two firms at different levels of the supply chain possess market power and independently apply markups, resulting in a final price that is higher than it would be if the firms were integrated. Double marginalization is clearly negative from an economic welfare point of view, as the double markup leads to a final price is higher

In online retail, drip pricing (also known as partitioned pricing or shrouded pricing) is a sales technique where a headline price is advertised at the beginning of the purchase process, followed by the incremental disclosure of additional fees, taxes or charges. The objective of drip pricing is to gain a consumer's interest in a misleadingly low headline price without the true final pri

Dumping, in economics, is a form of predatory pricing, especially in the context of international trade. It occurs when manufacturers export a product to another country at a price below the normal price with an injuring effect. The objective of dumping is to increase market share in a foreign market by driving out competition and thereby create a monopoly situation where the exporter wi

Dynamic currency conversion (DCC) or cardholder preferred currency (CPC) is a process whereby the amount of a credit card transaction is converted at the point of sale, ATM or internet to the currency of the card's country of issue. DCC is generally provided by third party operators in association with the merchant, and not by a card issuer. Card issuers permit DCC operators to offer DCC

Dynamic pricing, also referred to as surge pricing, demand pricing, time-based pricing and variable pricing, is a revenue management pricing strategy in which businesses set flexible prices for products or services based on current market demands. It usually entails raising prices during periods of peak demand and lowering prices during periods of low demand.

E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), in

An economic and monetary union (EMU) is a type of trade bloc that features a combination of a common market, customs union, and monetary union. Established via a trade pact, an EMU constitutes the sixth of seven stages in the process of economic integration. An EMU agreement usually combines a customs union with a common market. A typical EMU establishes free trade and a common external

In economics, economic rent is any payment to the owner of a factor of production in excess of the costs needed to bring that factor into production. In classical economics, economic rent is any payment made (including imputed value) or benefit received for non-produced inputs such as location (land) and for assets formed by creating official privilege over natural opportunities (e.g., p

Bitcoin was designed by its pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, to work as a currency, but its status as a currency is disputed. Economists define money as a store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of account, and agree that bitcoin does not currently meet all these criteria.

Electronic funds transfer at point of sale (EFTPOS; ) is a type of payment transaction in which electronic funds transfers (EFT) are processed at a point of sale (POS) system or payment terminal usually via payment methods such as payment cards (debit cards, credit cards or gift cards). EFTPOS technology was developed during the 1980s.

"Embrace, extend, and extinguish" (EEE), also known as "embrace, extend, and exterminate", is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found to have been used internally by Microsoft to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used open standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and using the differences to strongly disadvantage

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (aka ER Accelerator, or ERA) is an American seed accelerator launched in January 2011.

Equihash is a memory-hard Proof-of-work algorithm introduced by the University of Luxembourg's Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) at the 2016 Network and Distributed System Security Symposium. The algorithm is based on a generalization of the Birthday problem which finds colliding hash values. It has severe time-space trade-offs but concedes vulnerability

The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) is a standing committee of the European Parliament. It is responsible for economic and monetary policy, the functioning of Economic and Monetary Union, financial services and markets, the free movement of capital and payments, taxation, competition policy and the international monetary and financial system.

The European Union tax haven blacklist, officially the EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, is a tool of the European Union (EU) that lists tax havens. It is used by the Member States to tackle external risks of tax abuse and unfair tax competition. It was adopted for the first time in 2017 as a response to tax avoidance in the EU, screening 92 countries. It is managed by the Co

An extended warranty, sometimes called a service agreement, a service contract, or a maintenance agreement, is a prolonged warranty offered to consumers in addition to the standard warranty on new items. The extended warranty may be offered by the warranty administrator, the retailer or the manufacturer. Extended warranties cost extra and for a percentage of the item's retail price. Some

False advertising is the act of publishing, transmitting, distributing or otherwise publicly circulating an advertisement containing a false claim or statement, to promote the sale of property, goods or services. A false advertisement can be classified as deceptive if the advertiser deliberately misleads the consumer, rather than making an unintentional mistake. A number of governments u

The Faster Payment System (FPS) is a United Kingdom real-time gross settlement system which facilitates transfers between different banks' customer accounts within a few seconds. The system offers faster settlement times than the long-established BACS and CHAPS systems. FPS processes a large volume of small payments, subject to limits set by the individual banks, with some allowing Faste

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR; Urdu: وفاقی بورڈ محصولات), formerly known as Central Board of Revenue (CBR), is a federal law enforcement agency of Pakistan that investigates tax crimes, suspicious accumulation of wealth, money-laundering make regulation of collection of tax.

The Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning is one of the Federal Ministries of Nigeria.

The Finance Commissions (IAST: Vitta Jayga) are commissions periodically constituted by the President of India under Article 280 of the Indian Constitution to define the financial relations between the central government of India and the individual state governments. The First Commission was established in 1951 under The Finance Commission (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1951. Fifteen Fi

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is a financial regulatory body in the United Kingdom. It operates independently of the UK Government and is financed by charging fees to members of the financial services industry. The FCA regulates financial firms providing services to consumers, and maintains the integrity of the financial markets in the United Kingdom.

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (French: Agence de la consommation en matière financière du Canada, FCAC) is an agency of the Government of Canada that enforces consumer protection legislation, regulations and industry commitments by federally regulated financial entities. It also provides programs and information to help consumers understand their rights and responsibilities whe

The Financial Modeling World Cup (FMWC) is an organization that hosts various Microsoft Excel–based competitions.

The Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU; Urdu: مالیاتی نگرانی اکائی) is the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Pakistan established under the provisions of Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010 (Previously Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance, 2007). It is an independent intelligence service department of the Government of Pakistan and primarily responsible for analyzing transactions, money laundering

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) was a quasi-judicial body accountable for the regulation of the financial services industry in the United Kingdom between 2001 and 2013. It was founded as the Securities and Investments Board (SIB) in 1985. Its board was appointed by the Treasury, although it operated independently of government. It was structured as a company limited by guarantee a

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) is the Belize government agency responsible for non-banking financial regulation. It is responsible for regulating all non-banking financial market participants and setting and enforcing of financial regulations. A number of international online forex brokers obtain their international license from FSC.

The Australian financial system consists of the arrangements covering the borrowing and lending of funds and the transfer of ownership of financial claims in Australia, comprising:

First Direct (styled first direct) is a telephone and internet based direct retail bank, which is a division of HSBC UK Bank plc based in the United Kingdom. First Direct has headquarters in Leeds, England, and in 2024, had 1.9 million customers. On its launch, it was the UK's first telephone-only bank.

Foreign exchange reserves (also called forex reserves or FX reserves) are cash and other reserve assets such as gold and silver held by a central bank or other monetary authority that are primarily available to balance payments of the country, influence the foreign exchange rate of its currency, and to maintain confidence in financial markets. Reserves are held in one or more reserve cur