Issuer is a legal entity that develops, registers, and sells securities for the purpose of financing its operations.
Issuers may be governments, corporations, or investment trusts. Issuers are legally responsible for the obligations of the issue, and for reporting financial conditions, material developments, and any other operational activities as required by the regulations of their jurisdictions.
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 This means no network access is required by the payment collection terminals as funds can be withdrawn and deposited straight from the card.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 card can use the funds. They are an electronic development of token coins and are typically used in low-value payment systems or where network access is difficult or expensive to implement, such as parking machines, public transport systems, and closed payment systems in locations such as ships.
Stored-value cards differ from debit cards, where money is on deposit with the issuer, and credit cards which are subject to credit limits set by the issuer and are connected to accounts at financial institutions. Another difference between stored-value cards and debit and credit cards is that debit and credit cards are usually issued in the name of individual account holders, while stored-value cards may be anonymous, as in the case of gift cards. Stored-value cards are prepaid money cards and may be disposed when the value is used, or the card value may be topped up, as in the case of telephone calling cards or when used as a fare card.
The secondary market, also called the aftermarket and follow on public offering, is the financial market in which previously issued financial instruments such as stock, bonds, options, and futures are bought and sold. The initial sale of the security by the issuer to a purchaser, who pays proceeds to the issuer, is the primary market. All sales after the initial sale of the security are sales in the secondary market. Whereas the term primary market refers to the market for new issues of securities, and "[a] market is primary if the proceeds of sales go to the issuer of the securities sold," the secondary market in contrast is the market created by the later trading of such securities.
With primary issuances of securities or financial instruments (the primary market), often an underwriter purchases these securities directly from issuers, such as corporations issuing shares in an initial public offering (IPO) or private placement. Then the underwriter re-sells the securities to other buyers, in what is referred to as a secondary market or aftermarket (or a buyer in contrast may buy directly from the federal government, in the case of a government issuing treasuries).
A credit rating agency (CRA, also called a ratings service) is a company that assigns credit ratings, which rate a debtor's ability to pay back debt by making timely principal and interest payments and the likelihood of default. An agency may rate the creditworthiness of issuers of debt obligations, of debt instruments, and in some cases, of the servicers of the underlying debt, but not of individual consumers.
Other forms of a rating agency include environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) rating agencies and the Chinese Social Credit System.
The primary market is the part of the capital market that deals with the issuance and sale of securities to purchasers directly by the issuer, with the issuer being paid the proceeds. A primary market means the market for new issues of securities, as distinguished from the secondary market, where previously issued securities are bought and sold. A market is primary if the proceeds of sales go to the issuer of the securities sold. Buyers buy securities that were not previously traded.
Investment banking is an advisory-based financial service for institutional investors, corporations, governments, and similar clients. 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 assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provide ancillary services such as market making, trading of derivatives and equity securities, FICC services (fixed income instruments, currencies, and commodities) or research (macroeconomic, credit or equity research). Most investment banks maintain prime brokerage and asset management departments in conjunction with their investment research businesses. As an industry, it is broken up into the Bulge Bracket (upper tier), Middle Market (mid-level businesses), and boutique market (specialized businesses).
Unlike commercial banks and retail banks, investment banks do not take deposits. The revenue model of an investment bank comes mostly from the collection of fees for advising on a transaction, contrary to a commercial or retail bank. From the passage of Glass–Steagall Act in 1933 until its repeal in 1999 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, the United States maintained a separation between investment banking and commercial banks. Other industrialized countries, including G7 countries, have historically not maintained such a separation. As part of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd–Frank Act of 2010), the Volcker Rule requires some institutional separation of investment banking services from commercial banking.
Euronext N.V. (short for European New Exchange Technology) is a European bourse that provides trading and post-trade services for a range of financial instruments. It is registered in Amsterdam but its operational headquarters are located in Paris. It operates major stock exchanges in eight countries: France (Euronext Paris), the Netherlands (Euronext Amsterdam), Belgium (Euronext Brussels), Ireland (Euronext Dublin), Portugal (Euronext Lisbon), Italy (Borsa Italiana), Greece (Athens Stock Exchange) and Norway (Euronext Oslo Børs). The present-day Euronext was spun off from the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in 2014, shortly after ICE's acquisition of NYSE Euronext the year before.
Traded assets include regulated equities, exchange-traded funds (ETF), warrants and certificates, bonds, derivatives, commodities, foreign exchange as well as indices. As of March 2025, Euronext operated nearly 1,800 listed issuers with a market capitalization of approximately €6.3 trillion.