Glossary

Assets – any form in which wealth can be held.

Buying (purchasing) power – refers to the amount of goods and services a given amount of money – or, more generally, liquid assets – can buy.

Cash – money in coins or notes rather than cheques or credit cards.

Charge – the amount of money you have to pay for goods or services

Commission – an amount of money that is paid to someone according to the value of the goods they have sold.

Commodity – an undifferentiated product whose value arises from the owner’s right to sell rather than the right to use. Example: commodities from the financial world include oil (sold by the barrel), electricity (most users of electric power are only concerned with overall energy consumption; only a minority of users are concerned with the quality and technical details of voltage and frequency deviations, phase imbalance, etc.), wheat, bulk chemicals such as sulfuric acid, base and other metals, and even pork-bellies and orange juice.

Commodity money – money whose value comes from a commodity out of which it is made.

Credit card – A credit card system is a type of retail transaction settlement and credit system, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. A credit card is different from a debit card in that the credit card issuer lends the consumer money rather than having the money removed from an account.

Credit money – money that is backed by a promise to pay made by someone other than the state. Examples of credit money include bank deposits and credit card loans.

Current account (Am checking account) – a bank account that you can take money out of at any time.

Debit card – a card which physically resembles a credit card, and, like a credit card, is used as an alternative to cash when making purchases.

Deposit – a specific sum of money taken and held on account by a financial institution (e.g. a bank) as a service provided for its clients.

Deposit account – a bank account that pays interest on condition that you keep money there for a particular length of time.

Fee – 1. an amount of money that you pay to a professional person for their work. 2. an amount of money that you pay to do something.

Gold standard – a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold. Under the gold standard, currency issuers guarantee to redeem notes in that amount of gold.

Giro (in North America –direct deposit) – a method of payment. It has some similarities with a cheque, but whereas a cheque is given to the payee who deposits it in his or her bank, a giro is given by the payer to his or her bank, which transfers funds into the payee's bank, directly into their account.

Inflation – a continuing increase in prices or the rate at which prices increase

Interest rate – the percentage amount charged by a bank etc when you borrow money or paid to you by a bank when you keep money in an account there.

Liquidity (market liquidity) – a business or economics term that refers to the ability to quickly buy or sell a particular item without causing a significant movement in the price. The term is usually shortened to liquidity.

Loan – is a type of debt. All material things can be lent but this article focuses exclusively on monetary loans. Like all debt instruments, a loan entails the redistribution of financial assets over time, between the lender and the borrower.

Money – any good or token used by a society as a medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account.

Money order – a type of check intended to provide a safe alternative to sending cash (in the mail). Money orders are typically sold by third parties such as the Postal Service, grocery stores, convenience stores, and financial service companies such as banks.

Price – he amount of money for which something is sold, bought, or offered.

Security – something such as property that you promise to give someone if you cannot pay back money you have borrowed from them.

Transfer – moving money from the control of one account or institution to another.