FinTech Glossary.
Updated on June 29th 2022.
Active Directory
Active Directory is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Initially, Active Directory was used only for centralized domain management.
AI
Artificial Intelligence is intelligence demonstrated by machines. We're using Artificial Intelligence to build our matching algorithms.
Airflow
Apache Airflow is an open-source workflow management platform for data engineering pipelines. It started at Airbnb in October 2014 as a solution to manage the company's increasingly complex workflows.
AG Grid
Agnostic Grid is a JavaScript data grid that is framework agnostic.
Agile
In software development, agile practices include requirements discovery and solutions improvement through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams.
Alternative Finance
Alternative Finance refers to non-traditional financing, such as a crowdfunding or peer to peer lending. Firms providing alternative finance sit outside of the traditional banking eco-system and offer loans, finance or equity purchase.
Angel Investors
Angel Investors provide capital for businesses in the form of convertible debt or ownership. Angel investors provide initial capital and often bear the biggest risk, but can reap the biggest rewards.
API
Application Programming Interface is a software interface that allows two separate softwares interact with each other. Financial Software firms may offer APIs to allow Capital Market funds the ability to "plug and play" new programmes into their systems.
Assembly
In computer programming, Assembly refers to a low-level language that communicates with a computer's hardware. There are many examples of Assembly languages, including ARM, x86 and MIPS.
AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is Amazon's cloud computing service.
Azure
Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure, is a cloud computing service operated by Microsoft for application management via Microsoft-managed data centres.
Big Data
Big Data refers to large data-sets that grow exponentially. It can be structured (Names/Dates/Stock Performance etc.) or unstructured (Social Media/Video/Emails etc.) and often comes as the result of data-mining.
Blockchain
Blockchain is a distributed and decentralised database stored in a digital format. It guarantees security of a record of data and generates trust without the need for a trusted third party.
C (Programming Language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie, and remains very widely used and influential.
C++ (Programming Language)
C++ is a general-purpose programming language created by Bjarne Stroustrap in 1985 as an extension of the C programming language.
C# (Programming Language)
C# is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language encompassing static typing, strong typing, lexically scoped, imperative, declarative, functional, generic, object-oriented, and component-oriented programming disciplines.
Challenger Bank
Challenger Banks are relatively new, retail banks competing with the older and more traditional banks. Examples of Challenger Banks in the UK include Monzo, Revolut, Oaknorth and Tide.
Clojure (Programming Language)
Clojure is a dynamic and general-purpose programming language and is a dialect of Lisp. It provides easy access to the Java frameworks.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing refers to on-demand services such as data storage and computer power that is hosted externally and supported by multiple data centres. This removes the need for companies to invest in on-premises servers and computer systems.
Cloud Provider
Cloud Providers include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), DigitalOcean, Up Cloud.
COBOL (Programming Language)
COBOL is am English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding refers to raising capital from a large group of non-institutional investors. Examples of popular crowdfunding platforms include Kickstarter, IndieGoGo and GoFundMe.
Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency is any currency that exists virtually or digitally that requires cryptography to secure transactions. Popular cryptocurrencies include Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP or Tether.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a stylestreet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in HTML or XML.
Dart
Dart is a programming language designed for client development, such as for the web and mobile apps. It is developed by Google and can also be used to build server and desktop applications. It is an object-oriented, class-based, garbage-collected language with C-style syntax.
Data Management Platform (DMP)
Data Management Platforms are used for collecting and storing data sets.
Data Mining
Data mining is the process of extracting and discovering patterns in large data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems.
DBT
dbt is an open-source command line tool that helps analysts and engineers transform data in their warehouse more effectively. It started at RJMetrics in 2016 as a solution to add basic transformation capabilities to Stitch.
Deep Data
Deep data refers to data that is high quality, relevant, and actionable. It has already been processed by data experts and is ready for use across the company.
Deep Learning
Deep learning is a machine learning technique that teaches computers to learn by example. Deep learning is a key technology behind driverless cars, enabling them to recognize a stop sign, or to distinguish a pedestrian from a lamppost.
Delphi (Programming Language)
Delphi is a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, mobile, web, and console software.
Derivative
A derivative is a contract between two or more parties whose value is based on an agreed-upon underlying financial asset (like a security) or set of assets (like an index). Common underlying instruments include bonds, commodities, currencies, interest rates, market indexes, and stocks.
Distributed Systems
A distributed system is a computing environment in which various components are spread across multiple computers (or other computing devices) on a network. These devices split up the work, coordinating their efforts to complete the job more efficiently than if a single device had been responsible for the task.
Docker
Docker is an industry-leading container platform for rapid app/microservices development and delivery.
Elixir
Elixir is a functional, concurrent, general-purpose programming language that runs on the BEAM virtual machine which is also used to implement the Erlang programming language.
Equity
Equity refers to the amount of money that would be returned to a company's shareholders if all of the assets were liquidated and all of the company's debt was paid off in the case of liquidation.
Erling (Programming Language)
Erlang is a programming language used to build massively scalable soft real-time systems with requirements on high availability. Some of its uses are in telecoms, banking, e-commerce, computer telephony and instant messaging. Erlang's runtime system has built-in support for concurrency, distribution and fault tolerance.
ESG
ESG stands for Environmental, Sustainable and Governance. ESG is becoming a more serious factor investors are taking when considering investing in companies.
ESMA
ESMA stands for the European Securities and Markets Authority, which is an independent European Union Authority located in Paris
FinTech
FinTech refers to Financial Technology. As part of a wider umbrella, FinTech can refer to regulation, payments, lending, insurance, banking and wealth technology. Looking to refer someone to a new role in FinTech? Click the button below and browse our open roles!
F# (Programming Language)
F# is a functional-first, general purpose, strongly typed, multi-paradigm programming language that encompasses functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming methods.
GO (Programming Language)
Go is a statically typed, compiled programming language designed at Google by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson. It is syntactically similar to C, but with memory safety, garbage collection, structural typing, and CSP-style concurrency.
Groovy
Apache Groovy is a powerful, optionally typed and dynamic language, with static-typing and static compilation capabilities, for the Java platform aimed at improving developer productivity thanks to a concise, familiar and easy to learn syntax.
Haskell
Haskell is a general-purpose, statically-typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research and industrial application, Haskell has pioneered a number of programming language features such as type classes, which enable type-safe operator overloading.
Hedging
Hedging refers to the risk management strategy employed to offset losses in investments by taking an opposite position in a related asset.
Hedge Fund
Hedge funds are actively managed investment pools whose managers use a wide range of strategies to beat average investment returns for their clients. They are considered risky alternative investment choices and often require high minimum investments to join, unlike traditional asset management firms.
Hurdle Rate
A hurdle rate is the minimum rate of return on a project or investment required by a manager or investor. It allows companies to make important decisions on whether or not to pursue a specific project.
High Water Mark
A high-water mark is the highest peak in value that an investment fund or account has reached. This term is often used in the context of fund manager compensation, which is performance-based.
HTML
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the code that is used to structure a web page and its content. For example, content could be structured within a set of paragraphs, a list of bulleted points, or using images and data tables.
iOS
Apple's mobile operating system
Index Fund
An index fund is an investment that tracks a market index, typically made up of stocks or bonds.
Internet of Things
IOT stands for Internet of Things and refers to physical objects with sensors, processing ability, software, and other technologies that connect and exchange data.
Java (Programming Language)
Java is a high-level, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible.
JavaScript (Programming Language)
JavaScript, often abbreviated JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. It's used for dynamic visual elements on webpages, including the Referment.com site.
Julia (Programming Language)
Julia is a high-level, high-performance, dynamic programming language. While it is a general-purpose language and can be used to write any application, many of its features are well suited for numerical analysis and computational science.
Kotlin (Programming Language)
Kotlin is a cross-platform, statically typed, general-purpose programming language with type inference. Kotlin is designed to interoperate fully with Java, and the JVM version of Kotlin's standard library depends on the Java Class Library, but type inference allows its syntax to be more concise.
Linux
Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds.
LISP
Lisp is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized prefix notation. Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language still in common use.
MacOS
Apple's operating system
MATLAB
MATLAB is a programming and numeric computing platform used by millions of engineers and scientists to analyze data, develop algorithms, and create models.
MsSQL
Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of storing and retrieving data as requested by other software applications
Node.JS
Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, back-end JavaScript runtime environment that runs on the V8 engine and executes JavaScript code outside a web browser.
.NET
.NET (Dot Net) is a developer platform with tools and libraries for building any type of app, including web, mobile, desktop, games, IoT, cloud, and microservices.
Objective C (Programming Language)
Objective-C is the primary programming language you use when writing software for OS X and iOS. It's a superset of the C programming language and provides object-oriented capabilities and a dynamic runtime.
PHP (Programming Language)
PHP is a popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development.
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance.
PowerShell
PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and the associated scripting language.
Prince 2
PRINCE2 is a structured project management method and practitioner certification programme. PRINCE2 emphasises dividing projects into manageable and controllable stages.
Python (Programming Language)
Python is a high-level, interpreted, general-purpose programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation. Python is dynamically-typed and garbage-collected.
Perl (Programming Language)
Perl is one of the most feature-rich programming languages with over three decades of development. It's portable and cross-platform.
R (Programming Language)
R is a programming language for statistical computing and graphics used among data miners and statisticians for data analysis and developing statistical software.
Red Hat Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version for x86-64. Fedora Linux serves as its upstream source.
Rust (Programming Language)
Rust is a multi-paradigm, general-purpose programming language designed for performance and safety, especially safe concurrency. It is syntactically similar to C++, but can guarantee memory safety by using a borrow checker to validate references.
Ruby (Programming Language)
Ruby is an interpreted, high-level, general-purpose programming language which supports multiple programming paradigms. It was designed with an emphasis on programming productivity and simplicity. In Ruby, everything is an object, including primitive data types.
Scala (Programming Language)
Scala is a strong statically typed general-purpose programming language which supports both object-oriented programming and functional programming.
Scrum
Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.
SFTR
SFTR stands for Securities Financing Transactions Regulation, which introduced requirements for firms to improve transparency and monitoring surrounding risk.
Snowflake
Snowflake is a data warehouse built on top of the Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure, and allows storage and compute to scale independently.
Spark
Apache Spark is an open-source unified analytics engine for large-scale data processing. Spark provides an interface for programming clusters with implicit data parallelism and fault tolerance.
SQL (Programming Language)
SQL is a domain-specific language used in programming and designed for managing data held in a relational database management system, or for stream processing in a relational data stream management system.
SQL (Programming Language)
SQL is a domain-specific language used in programming and designed for managing data held in a relational database management system, or for stream processing in a relational data stream management system.
Swift (Programming Language)
Swift is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm, compiled programming language developed by Apple Inc. and the open-source community.
Terraform
Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code software tool created by HashiCorp. Users define and provide data center infrastructure using a declarative configuration language known as HashiCorp Configuration Language, or optionally JSON.
TypeScript
TypeScript is a programming language developed and maintained by Microsoft. It is a strict syntactical superset of JavaScript and adds optional static typing to the language. It is designed for the development of large applications and transpiles to JavaScript.
UNIX
Unix is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix.
VBA
Visual Basic for Applications is an implementation of Microsoft's Event-Driven Programming language Visual Basic 6.0 built into most desktop Microsoft Office applications.
Windows
Microsoft's commercial operating system.
Windows Server
Windows Server is a line of operating systems that Microsoft specifically creates for use on a server.