Ripple
Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange and remittance network that is open to financial institutions worldwide and was created by Ripple Labs Inc., a US-based technology company. Released in 2012, Ripple is built upon a distributed open source protocol, and supports tokens representing fiat currency, cryptocurrency, commodities, or other units of value such as frequent flier miles or mobile minutes. Ripple purports to enable "secure, instantly and nearly free global financial transactions of any size with no chargebacks". The ledger employs the native cryptocurrency known as XRP.
In December 2020, Ripple Labs and two of its executives were sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for selling XRP tokens, which the SEC classified as unregistered securities. In July 2023, the court ruled that "XRP, as a digital token, is not in and of itself a 'contract, transaction, or scheme' that embodies the Howey requirements of an investment contract."
History
Ripple was conceived by Jed McCaleb and built by Arthur Britto and David Schwartz who then approached Ryan Fugger who had debuted[clarification needed] in 2005 as a financial service to provide secure payment options to members of an online community via a global network. Fugger had developed a system called OpenCoin which would transform into Ripple. The company also created its own form of digital currency referred to as XRP to allow financial institutions to transfer money with negligible fees and wait-time. In 2013, the company reported interest from banks for using its payment system.
By 2018, over 100 banks had signed up, but most of them were only using Ripple's XCurrent messaging technology, while avoiding the XRP cryptocurrency due to its volatility problems. Representatives of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), whose market dominance is being challenged by Ripple, have argued that the scalability issues of Ripple and other blockchain solutions remain unsolved, confining them to bilateral and intra-bank applications. A Ripple executive acknowledged in 2018 that "We started out with your classic blockchain, which we love. But the feedback from the banks is you cant put the whole world on a blockchain."
Ripple relies on a common shared ledger, which is a distributed database storing information about all Ripple accounts. Chris Larsen told the Stanford Graduate School of Business that the network was managed by a network of independent servers which compare their transaction records, and that servers could in theory belong to anyone, including banks or market makers. Ripple validates accounts and balances instantly for payment transmission and delivers payment notification within a few seconds. Payments are irreversible, and there are no chargebacks.
Ripple Labs continued as the primary contributors of code to the consensus verification system behind Ripple. In 2014, the protocol gained access to the US banking system amid concerns over security and a lack of regulation.
Litigation
A class action was filed against Ripple in May 2018 "alleging that it led a scheme to raise hundreds of millions of dollars through unregistered sales of its XRP tokens". According to the complaint, "the company created billions of coins 'out of thin air' and then profited by selling them to the public in 'what is essentially a never-ending initial coin offering'".
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiated legal proceedings against Ripple Labs, CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and co-founder Chris Larsen on December 21, 2020, for allegedly selling unregistered securities. In the lawsuit, the SEC claimed that XRP was a security instead of a commodity, because it was generated and distributed by Ripple Labs in a centralized fashion and was not being adopted by financial institutions for its advertised use cases. The SEC stated that Ripple executives sold 14.6 billion units of XRP for more than $1.38 billion to fund the company's operations and enrich themselves.
In response, Garlinghouse criticized the SEC and indicated that Ripple Labs would defend itself in court. Coinbase delisted XRP on December 28; an investor filed a class action on December 30 alleging that Coinbase sold XRP tokens with the understanding that they were unregistered securities.
On April 13, 2021, SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce published the Token Safe Harbor Proposal 2.0, which is ?intended to provide Initial Development Teams with a three-year time period within which they can facilitate participation in, and the continued development of, a functional or decentralized network, exempt from the registration provisions of the federal securities laws so long as certain conditions are met.?
Judge Analisa Torres issued a decision on motions for summary judgement on 13 July 2023, and stated the XRP token itself is not a security, although the manner in which it is sold could constitute the sale of a security. "XRP, as a digital token, is not in and of itself a 'contract, transaction, or scheme' that embodies the Howey requirements of an investment contract." The ruling further found that the institutional sales of XRP tokens constituted the unregistered offer and sale of investment contracts. However programmatic sales and other XRP token sales by Ripple Labs did not constitute the offer and sale of investment contracts, she ruled. The case could subsequently go to a full trial, or be appealed.
Reception
For its creation and development of the Ripple protocol (RTXP) and the Ripple payment/exchange network Ripple Labs was named as one of 2014's 50 Smartest Companies in the February 2014 edition of MIT Technology Review. A scientific study made by two researchers from Stanford and Stockholm universities that studied the money production from an energy consumption point of view and a macroeconomic level stated that running a server on Ripple was comparable to the energy needs of running an email server.
Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems are specialist funds transfer systems where the transfer of money or securities takes place from one bank to any other bank on a "real-time" and on a "gross" basis. Settlement in "real time" means a payment transaction is not subjected to any waiting period, with transactions being settled as soon as they are processed. "Gross settlement" means the transaction is settled on a one-to-one basis, without bundling or netting with any other transaction. "Settlement" means that once processed, payments are final and irrevocable.
History
As of 1985, three central banks implemented RTGS systems, while by the end of 2005, RTGS systems had been implemented by 90 central banks.
The first system that had the attributes of an RTGS system was the US Fedwire system which was launched in 1970. This was based on a previous method of transferring funds electronically between US federal reserve banks via telegraph. The United Kingdom and France both independently developed RTGS type systems in 1984. The UK system was developed by the Bankers' Clearing House in February 1984 and was called CHAPS. The French system was called SAGITTAIRE. A number of other developed countries launched systems over the next few years. These systems were diverse in operation and technology, being country-specific as they were usually based upon previous processes and procedures used in each country.
In the 1990s international finance organizations emphasized the importance of large-value funds transfer systems which banks use to settle interbank transfers for their own account as well as for their customers as a key part of a country's financial infrastructure. By 1997 a number of countries, inside as well as outside the Group of Ten, had introduced real-time gross settlement systems for large-value funds transfers. Nearly all G-10 countries had plans to have RTGS systems in operation in the course of 1997 and many other countries were also considering introducing such systems.
Operation
RTGS systems are usually operated by a country's central bank as it is seen as critical infrastructure for a country's economy. Economists believe that an efficient national payment system reduces the cost of exchanging goods and services, and is indispensable to the functioning of the interbank, money, and capital markets. A weak payment system may severely drag on the stability and developmental capacity of a national economy; its failures can result in inefficient use of financial resources, inequitable risk-sharing among agents, actual losses for participants, and loss of confidence in the financial system and in the very use of money.
RTGS system does not require any physical exchange of money; the central bank makes adjustments in the electronic accounts of Bank A and Bank B, reducing the balance in Bank A’s account by the amount in question and increasing the balance of Bank B’s account by the same amount. The RTGS system is suited for low-volume, high-value transactions. It lowers settlement risk, besides giving an accurate picture of an institution’s account at any point in time. The objective of RTGS systems by central banks throughout the world is to minimize risk in high-value electronic payment settlement systems. In an RTGS system, transactions are settled across accounts held at a central bank on a continuous gross basis. The settlement is immediate, final, and irrevocable. Credit risks due to settlement lags are eliminated. The best RTGS national payment systems cover up to 95% of high-value transactions within the national monetary market.
RTGS systems are an alternative to systems of settling transactions at the end of the day, also known as the net settlement system, such as the BACS system in the United Kingdom. In a net settlement system, all the inter-institution transactions during the day are accumulated, and at the end of the day, the central bank adjusts the accounts of the institutions by the net amounts of these transactions.
The World Bank has been paying increasing attention to payment system development as a key component of the financial infrastructure of a country and has provided various forms of assistance to over 100 countries. Most of the RTGS systems in place are secure and have been designed around international standards and best practices.
There are several reasons for central banks to adopt RTGS. First, a decision to adopt is influenced by competitive pressure from the global financial markets. Second, it is more beneficial to adopt an RTGS system for the central bank when this allows access to a broad system of other countries' RTGS systems. Third, it is very likely that the knowledge acquired through experiences with RTGS systems spills over to other central banks and helps them make their adoption decision. Fourth, central banks do not necessarily have to install and develop RTGS themselves. The possibility of sharing development with providers that have built RTGS systems in more than one country (CGI of UK holding the IP, CMA Small System of Sweden, JV Perago of South Africa, SIA S.p.A. of Italy and Montran of USA) has presumably lowered the cost and hence made it feasible for many countries to adopt.
Existing systems
Below is a listing of countries and their RTGS systems:
Country System
Angola SPTR (Portuguese: Sistema de pagamentos em tempo real; Real-time Payment System)
Argentina MEP (Spanish: Medio electrónico de pagos; Electronic Means of Payment)
Azerbaijan AZIPS (Azerbaijan Interbank Payment System)
Australia RITS (Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System)
Bahrain RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement System)
Bangladesh RTGS (Bangladesh Bank Payment Service Division)
Barbados Central Bank Real Time Gross Settlement System (CBRTGS)
Bosnia and Herzegovina RTGS
Belarus BISS (Belarus Interbank Settlement System)
Bulgaria RINGS (Real-time Interbank Gross Settlement)
Brazil STR (Portuguese: Sistema de Transferência de Reservas; Reserves Transfer System)
Canada Lynx
China China National Advanced Payment System (CNAPS) (also called Super Online Banking System)
Chile LBTR/CAS (Spanish: Liquidación Bruta en Tiempo Real; Real-time Gross Settlement)
Costa Rica TEF (Spanish: Transferencia Electrónica de Fondos; Electronic Funds Transfer)
Croatia HSVP (Croatian: Hrvatski sustav velikih plaćanja; Croatian Large Payment System)
Czech Republic CERTIS (Czech Express Real Time Interbank Gross Settlement System)
Denmark KRONOS2
Dominican Republic LBTR (Spanish: Liquidación Bruta en Tiempo Real; Gross Settlement in Real Time)
Egypt RTGS
European Union Eurozone TARGET2
Fiji FIJICLEAR
Hong Kong Clearing House Automated Transfer System (CHATS)
Hungary VIBER (Hungarian: Valós Idejű Bruttó Elszámolási Rendszer; Real-time Gross Settlement System)
Georgia GPSS (Georgian Payment and Securities System)
India RTGS
Indonesia Sistem Bank Indonesia Real Time Gross Settlement (BI-RTGS)
Iran SATNA (سامانه تسویه ناخالص آنی, Real-Time Gross Settlement System)
Iraq RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement System)
Israel Zahav (Hebrew: זה"ב זיכויים והעברות בזמן אמת; Zahav Real-time Credits and Transfers)
Japan BOJ-NET (Bank of Japan Financial Network System)
Jordan RTGS-J
Kenya Kenya Electronic Payment and Settlement System (KEPSS)
Korea BOK-WIRE+ (The Bank of Korea Financial Wire Network, 한은금융망)
Kuwait KASSIP (Kuwait's Automated Settlement System for Inter-Participant Payments)
Lebanon BDL-RTGS (Banque Du Liban – Real Time Gross Settlement)
Macedonia MIPS (Macedonian Interbank Payment System)
Macao RTGS
Malawi MITASS (Malawi Interbank Settlement System)
Malaysia RENTAS (Real Time Electronic Transfer of Funds and Securities)
Mauritius Mauritius Automated Clearing and Settlement System (MACSS)
Mexico SPEI (Spanish: Sistema de Pagos Electrónicos Interbancarios; Interbank Electronic Payment System)
Morocco SRBM (Système de règlement brut du Maroc; Moroccan Gross Settlement System)
Namibia NISS (Namibia Interbank Settlement System)
New Zealand ESAS (Exchange Settlement Account System)
Nigeria CIFTS (CBN Inter-Bank Funds Transfer System)
Pakistan RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement System)
Paraguay LBTR (Spanish: Liquidación Bruta en Tiempo Real; Gross Settlement in Real Time)
Peru LBTR (Spanish: Liquidación Bruta en Tiempo Real; Gross Settlement in Real Time)
Philippines PhilPaSS
Poland SORBNET and SORBNET2
Qatar Qatar Payment System (QPS)
Russia BESP System (Banking Electronic Speed Payment System)
Romania ReGIS
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabian Riyal Interbank Express (SARIE)
Singapore MEPS+ (MAS Electronic Payment System Plus)
South Africa SAMOS (The South African Multiple Option Settlement)
Sri Lanka LankaSettle (RTGS/SSSS)
Sweden RIX (Swedish: Riksbankens system för överföring av kontoförda pengar)
Switzerland SIC (Swiss Interbank Clearing)
Taiwan CIFS (CBC Interbank Funds Transfer System)
Tanzania Tanzania Interbank Settlement (TIS)
Thailand BAHTNET (Bank of Thailand Automated High Value Transfer Network)
Turkey EFT (Electronic Fund Transfer)
Ukraine SEP (System of Electronic Payments of the National Bank of Ukraine)
United Kingdom CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment System)
United States Fedwire
Uganda Uganda National Interbank Settlement (UNIS)
Vietnam National Payment Service 24/7 Interbank Funds Transfer (NAPAS247)
Zambia Zambian Interbank Payment and Settlement System (ZIPSS)
Zimbabwe Zimbabwe Electronic Transfer and Settlement System (ZETSS)
UAE UAE Funds Transfer System (UAEFTS)
In 2010, the World Bank published a report on payment systems worldwide, which investigated these countries' usage of real-time gross settlement systems for large-value payments.
A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, payment instruments such as payment cards, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make its exchange possible. A common type of payment system, called an operational network, links bank accounts and provides for monetary exchange using bank deposits. Some payment systems also include credit mechanisms, which are essentially a different aspect of payment.
Payment systems are used in lieu of tendering cash in domestic and international transactions. This consists of a major service provided by banks and other financial institutions. Traditional payment systems include negotiable instruments such as drafts (e.g., cheques) and documentary credits such as letters of credit. With the advent of computers and electronic communications, many alternative electronic payment systems have emerged. The term electronic payment refers to a payment made from one bank account to another using electronic methods and forgoing the direct intervention of bank employees. Narrowly defined electronic payment refers to e-commerce—a payment for buying and selling goods or services offered through the Internet, or broadly to any type of electronic funds transfer.
Modern payment systems use cash-substitutes as compared to traditional payment systems. This includes debit cards, credit cards, electronic funds transfers, direct credits, direct debits, internet banking and e-commerce payment systems.
Payment systems may be physical or electronic and each has its own procedures and protocols. Standardization has allowed some of these systems and networks to grow to a global scale, but there are still many country-specific and product-specific systems. Examples of payment systems that have become globally available are credit card and automated teller machine (ATM) networks. Additionally, forms exist to transfer funds between financial institutions. Domestically this is accomplished by using Automated clearing house (ACH) and real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems. Internationally this is accomplished using the SWIFT network.
Domestic
An efficient national payment system reduces the cost of exchanging goods, services, and assets. It is indispensable to the functioning of the interbank, money, and capital markets. A weak payment system may severely drag on the stability and developmental capacity of a national economy. Such failures can result in inefficient use of financial resources, inequitable risk-sharing among agents, actual losses for participants, and loss of confidence in the financial system and in the very use of money. The technical efficiency of the payment system is important for the development of the economy.
An automated clearing house (ACH) system processes transactions in batches, storing, and transmitting them in groups. An ACH is considered a net settlement system, which means settlement may be delayed. This poses what is known as settlement risk.
Real-time gross settlement systems (RTGS) are funds transfer systems where the transfer of money or securities takes place from one bank to another on a "real-time" and on "gross" basis. Settlement in "real time" means that payment transaction does not require any waiting period. The transactions are settled as soon as they are processed. "Gross settlement" means the transaction is settled on one to one basis without bunching or netting with any other transaction. Once processed, payments are final and irrevocable.
Comparatively, ACHs are typically used for low-value, non-urgent transactions while RTGS systems are typically used for high-value, urgent transactions.
Countries and regions have also implemented real-time or instant (or faster) payment systems which typically operate 24x7x365 and perform the transaction from debit of ordering customer's account to credit of beneficiary customer's account within a timeframe of 10–15 seconds.
International
Globalization is driving corporations to transact more frequently across borders. Consumers are also transacting more on a global basis—buying from foreign eCommerce sites as well as traveling, living, and working abroad. For the payments industry, the result is higher volumes of payments—in terms of both currency value and number of transactions. This is also leading to a consequent shift downwards in the average value of these payments
The ways these payments are made can be cumbersome, error prone, and expensive. Payments systems set up decades ago continue to be used sometimes retrofitted, sometimes force-fitted—to meet the needs of modern corporations. And, frequently, the systems creak and groan as they bear the strain. Examples of such systems include STEP2 (an upgrade from 2003), which processes only Euros, and TARGET2 (an upgrade from 2007), which is closed on Saturdays and Sundays and some public holidays.
As of 2014, STEP2 is the only Pan-European automated clearing house (or PE-ACH system) in operation. This type of system is thought to become less relevant as banks will settle their transactions via multiple clearing houses rather than using one central clearing house.
TARGET2 (Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer System) is a RTGS system that covers the European Union member states which use the euro. It is part of the Eurosystem, which comprises the European Central Bank and the national central banks of those countries that have adopted the euro. TARGET2 is used for the settlement of central bank operations, large-value Euro interbank transfers as well as other euro payments. TARGET 2 provides real-time financial transfers, debt settlement at central banks which is immediate and irreversible.
For users of these systems, on both the paying and receiving sides, it can be difficult and time-consuming to learn how to use cross-border payments tools, and how to set up processes to make optimal use of them. Solution providers (both banks and non-banks) also face challenges cobbling together old systems to meet new demands. For these providers, cross-border payments are both lucrative (especially given foreign exchange conversion revenue) and rewarding, in terms of the overall financial relationship created with the end customer.
The challenges for global payments are not simply those resulting from volume increases. A number of economic, political, and technical factors are changing the types of cross-border transactions conducted. Such factors include:
Corporations are making more cross-border purchases of services (as opposed to goods), as well as more purchases of complex fabricated parts rather than simple, raw materials.
Enterprises are purchasing from more countries, in more regions.
Increased outsourcing is leading to new in-country and new cross-border intracompany transactions.
More enterprises are participating in complex, automated supply chains, which in some cases drive automatic ordering and fulfillment. Online purchasing continues to grow, both by large enterprises as part of an automated procurement systems and by smaller enterprises purchasing directly.
There is continued growth in the use of Commuter worker.
Individuals are increasingly taking their investments abroad.
The following is a list of notable online payment service providers and payment gateway providing companies, their platform base and the countries they offer services in:
(POS -- Point of Sale)
Company Platform Location
2C2P Online, POS, mobile Singapore
Adyen Online, POS, mobile Global, headquarters in the Netherlands
Alipay Online, POS, mobile China
Amazon Pay Online Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States
Apple Pay Mobile, online United States (except Puerto Rico & other unincorporated territories), United Kingdom (excluding British Overseas Territories but including Crown Dependencies), Canada, Australia, China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Singapore, Switzerland, France, Monaco, Russia, New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Republic of Ireland, Taiwan, Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Denmark (including Greenland and Faroe Islands), Finland, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Ukraine, Poland, Norway, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Saudi Arabia, Austria, Iceland, Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus (except Northern Cyprus), Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Georgia, Belarus, Montenegro, Serbia, Mexico
Atos Online Global (headquarters in France and Germany)
Authorize.Net Online Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Europe
BHIM Online, POS, Mobile, QR India
BitPay Online (bitcoin) United States
bKash Mobile, online Bangladesh
BPAY Online Australia
Braintree Mobile, online, POS Australia, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, United States
CM The Netherlands
Creditcall Online, POS, mobile United Kingdom, United States
CyberSource
DataCash
DigiCash
Digital River Minnetonka, Minnesota, United States
Dwolla United States
Easypaisa Online, mobile Pakistan
Edy
Elavon
Euronet Worldwide Online, POS
eWAY Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau
First Data POS United States
Fortumo Online, mobile Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Bahrain, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Iraq, Kenya, Kuwait, Morocco, Mozambique, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Albania, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Austria, Cyprus, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, Canada
Google Pay Online, POS, mobile, QR Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania,
Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania< Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States
Heartland Payment Systems Online, POS, mobile United States
Ingenico POS France
IP Payments Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom
JazzCash Online, mobile Pakistan
Klarna Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States
Leaf Holdings POS Boston
M-Pesa Mobile Kenya, Tanzania, India, Lesotho, DRC, Ghana, Mozambique, Egypt
Mir Russian Federation, South Ossetia, Turkey, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan
MobiKwik Online, POS, Mobile, QR India
MPay Thailand
Nagad Mobile, online Bangladesh
Neteller
Novalnet Online, POS, mobile Worldwide. Headquartered in Germany
Oceanpayment Hong Kong
OFX Online Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States
Opayo Online, POS United Kingdom/Ireland
PagSeguro Brazil
Paya Online, POS North America
Paymentwall United States
Payoneer United States
PayPal Online United States, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Spain, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Italy, India
PayPay Japan
PayPoint United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Romania
Paysafe Group Online, POS, mobile, MO/TO United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Spain
Paysbuy Thailand
Paytm Online, POS, Mobile, QR India
PayU Online Netherlands, India, South Africa, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Turkey
PayZapp Online, POS, Mobile, QR India
PhonePe Online, POS, Mobile, QR India
PlaySpan United States
Qiwi Russia and neighboring countries
QRIS QR Indonesia and Thailand
Realex Payments Republic of Ireland United Kingdom
Red Dot Payment Singapore
SafeCharge International Online, mobile, POS United Kingdom
Skrill (formerly Moneybookers) United Kingdom
Square Online, mobile, POS United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom
Stripe Online, mobile Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States (invite-only in Brazil, Estonia, Greece, India, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia)
Tencent Online, POS, mobile China
TransferMate Ireland
TransferWise United Kingdom
TrueMoney Thailand, Southeast Asia
Trustly Online, mobile Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
Ukash United Kingdom
Verifone POS United States
WebMoney Russia
WeChat Pay Mobile, POS, online China
WePay United States
Wirecard Online, POS, mobile, MO/TO Germany
Worldpay United Kingdom
WorldRemit United Kingdom
Xsolla Russia, United States
Yandex.Money Russia
Ripple Labs, Inc. is an American technology company which develops the Ripple payment protocol and exchange network. Originally named Opencoin and renamed in 2015, the company was founded in 2012 and is based in San Francisco, California.
In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them.
The price of a commodity good is typically determined as a function of its market as a whole: well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. The wide availability of commodities typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (such as brand name) other than price.
Most commodities are raw materials, basic resources, agricultural, or mining products, such as iron ore, sugar, or grains like rice and wheat. Commodities can also be mass-produced unspecialized products such as chemicals and computer memory. Popular commodities include crude oil, corn, and gold.
Other definitions of commodity include something useful or valued and an alternative term for an economic good or service available for purchase in the market. In such standard works as Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics (1920) and Léon Walras's Elements of Pure Economics ([1926] 1954) 'commodity' serves as general term for an economic good or service.
Etymology
The word commodity came into use in English in the 15th century, from the French commodité, "amenity, convenience". Going further back, the French word derives from the Latin commoditas, meaning "suitability, convenience, advantage". The Latin word commodus (from which English gets other words including commodious and accommodate) meant variously "appropriate", "proper measure, time, or condition", and "advantage, benefit".
Description
Characteristics
In economics, the term commodity is used specifically for economic goods that have full or partial but substantial fungibility; that is, the market treats their instances as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. Karl Marx described this property as follows: "From the taste of wheat, it is not possible to tell who produced it, a Russian serf, a French peasant or an English capitalist." Petroleum and copper are examples of commodity goods: their supply and demand are a part of one universal market.
Non-commodity items such as stereo systems have many aspects of product differentiation, such as the brand, the user interface and the perceived quality. The demand for one type of stereo may be much larger than demand for another.
The price of a commodity good is typically determined as a function of its market as a whole. Well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets.
Hard and soft commodities
Soft commodities are goods that are grown, such as wheat, or rice.
Hard commodities are mined. Examples include gold, silver, helium, and oil.
Energy commodities include electricity, gas, coal and oil. Electricity has the particular characteristic that it is usually uneconomical to store, and must therefore be consumed as soon as it is produced.
Commoditization
Commoditization occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base, often by the diffusion of the intellectual capital necessary to acquire or produce it efficiently. As such, goods that formerly carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities, such as generic pharmaceuticals and DRAM chips. An article in The New York Times cites multivitamin supplements as an example of commoditization; a 50 mg tablet of calcium is of equal value to a consumer no matter what company produces and markets it, and as such, multivitamins are now sold in bulk and are available at any supermarket with little brand differentiation. Following this trend, nanomaterials are emerging from carrying premium profit margins for market participants to a status of commodification.
There is a spectrum of commoditization, rather than a binary distinction of "commodity versus differentiable product". Few products have complete undifferentiability and hence fungibility; even electricity can be differentiated in the market based on its method of generation (e.g., fossil fuel, wind, solar), in markets where energy choice lets a buyer opt (and pay more) for renewable methods if desired. Many products' degree of commoditization depends on the buyer's mentality and means. For example, milk, eggs, and notebook paper are not differentiated by many customers; for them, the product is fungible and lowest price is the main decisive factor in the purchasing choice. Other customers take into consideration other factors besides price, such as environmental sustainability and animal welfare. To these customers, distinctions such as "organic versus not" or "cage free versus not" count toward differentiating brands of milk or eggs, and percentage of recycled content or Forest Stewardship Council certification count toward differentiating brands of notebook paper.
Global commodities trading company
This is a list of companies trading globally in commodities, descending by size as of October 28, 2011.
Vitol
Glencore International AG
Trafigura
Cargill
Salam Investment
Archer Daniels Midland
Gunvor (company)
Mercuria Energy Group
Noble Group
Louis Dreyfus Group
Bunge Limited
Wilmar International
Olam International
Rochel International
Commodity trade
Main articles: Futures exchange and Commodity market
In the original and simplified sense, commodities were things of value, of uniform quality, that were produced in large quantities by many different producers; the items from each different producer were considered equivalent. On a commodity exchange, it is the underlying standard stated in the contract that defines the commodity, not any quality inherent in a specific producer's product.
Commodities exchanges include:
Bourse Africa (formerly GBOT)
Bursa Malaysia Derivatives (MDEX)
Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT)
Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME)
Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE)
Euronext.liffe (LIFFE)
Kansas City Board of Trade (KCBT)
London Metal Exchange (LME)
Marché à Terme International de France (MATIF)
Mercantile Exchange Nepal Limited (MEX)
Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX)
National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX)
National Commodity Exchange Limited (NCEL)
New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)
Markets for trading commodities can be very efficient, particularly if the division into pools matches demand segments. These markets will quickly respond to changes in supply and demand to find an equilibrium price and quantity. In addition, investors can gain passive exposure to the commodity markets through a commodity price index.
In order to diversify their investments and mitigate the risks associated with inflationary debasement of currencies, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds allocate capital to non-listed assets such as a commodities and commodity-related infrastructure.
Inventory data
The inventory of commodities, with low inventories typically leading to more volatile future prices and increasing the risk of a "stockout" (inventory exhaustion). According to economist theorists, companies receive a convenience yield by holding inventories of certain commodities. Data on inventories of commodities are not available from one common source, although data is available from various sources. Inventory data on 31 commodities was used in a 2006 study on the relationship between inventories and commodity futures risk premiums.
Commodification of labour
In classical political economy and especially in Karl Marx's critique of political economy, a commodity is an object or a good or service ("product" or "activity" ) produced by human labour. Objects are external to man. However, some objects attain "use value" to persons in this world, when they are found to be "necessary, useful or pleasant in life". "Use value" makes an object "an object of human wants", or "a means of subsistence in the widest sense".
As society developed, people found that they could trade goods and services for other goods and services. At this stage, these goods and services became "commodities". According to Marx, commodities are defined as objects which are offered for sale or are "exchanged in a market". In the marketplace, where commodities are sold, "use value" is not helpful in facilitating the sale of commodities. Accordingly, in addition to having use value, commodities must have an "exchange value"—a value that could be expressed in the market.
Prior to Marx, many economists debated as to what elements made up exchange value. Adam Smith maintained that exchange value was made up of rent, profit, labour and the costs of wear and tear on the instruments of husbandry. David Ricardo, a follower of Adam Smith, modified Smith's approach on this point by alleging that labour alone is the content of the exchange value of any good or service. While maintaining that all exchange value in commodities was derived directly from the hands of the people that made the commodity, Ricardo noted that only part of the exchange value of the commodity was paid to the worker who made the commodity. The other part of the value of this particular commodity was labour that was not paid to the worker—unpaid labour. This unpaid labour was retained by the owner of the means of production. In capitalist society, the capitalist owns the means of production and therefore the unpaid labour is retained by the capitalist as rent or as profit. The means of production means the site where the commodity is made, the raw products that are used in the production and the instruments or machines that are used for the production of the commodity.
However, not all commodities are reproducible nor were all commodities originally intended to be sold in the market. These priced goods are also treated as commodities, e.g. human labour-power, works of art and natural resources ("earth itself is an instrument of labour"), even though they may not be produced specifically for the market, or be non-reproducible goods.
Marx's analysis of the commodity is intended to help solve the problem of what establishes the economic value of goods, using the labour theory of value. This problem was extensively debated by Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Rodbertus-Jagetzow among others.
All three of the above-mentioned economists rejected the theory that labour composed 100% of the exchange value of any commodity. In varying degrees, these economists turned to supply and demand to establish the price of commodities. Marx held that the "price" and the "value" of a commodity were not synonymous. Price of any commodity would vary according to the imbalance of supply to demand at any one period of time. The "value" of the same commodity would be consistent and would reflect the amount of labour value used to produce that commodity.
Prior to Marx, economists noted that the problem with using the "quantity of labour" to establish the value of commodities was that the time spent by an unskilled worker would be longer than the time spent on the same commodity by a skilled worker. Thus, under this analysis, the commodity produced by an unskilled worker would be more valuable than the same commodity produced by the skilled worker. Marx pointed out, however, that in society at large, an average amount of time that was necessary to produce the commodity would arise. This average time necessary to produce the commodity Marx called the "socially necessary labour time". Socially necessary labour time was the proper basis on which to base the "exchange value" of a given commodity.
Commodity Super Cycle
Commodity Super Cycles are periods of times, around a decade where commodities as a whole trade at a price that is greater than their long term Moving average. A Super Cycle will usually occur when there is large industrial and commercial change in a country or world that requires more resources to support the change. As prices rise goods and services that rely on commodities rise with them.
History of Super Cycles
There have been four super cycles over the last 120 years worldwide. The first commodity super cycle started in late 1890 and was accelerated on the back of widespread U.S. industrialization and World War 1. In 1917 commodity prices peaked and then entered a downtrend to the 1930s. As war erupted in Europe in the late 1930s and eventually including the U.S. the world saw a new cycle begin. Countries were not just preparing for war but also the Aftermath of World War II as lots of Europe and Asia faced heavy rebuilding. This cycle eventually peaked in 1951 and faded away in the early 70s. In the 1970s as world economies grew they needed more materials and energy to support expansion leading to increases in prices across the board. This boom came to an end as foreign investments fled as extractive industries became nationalized. The most recent of commodity super cycles began in 2000 as China joined the World Trade Organization. China was also in the beginning of their boom as industry and expansion took off. Workers moved into cities as emerging industries took off and offered a lots of new jobs and opportunities. In 2008 when the Great Recession hit it put a halt onto the supercycle as GDP's across the world tanked leaving many economies in recessions.
The next or the fifth supercycle could arrive as the world enters the final phases of the COVID-19 pandemic and starts to build massive clean energy infrastructure in view of the commodity price increase.
The following is a list of futures contracts on physically traded commodities.
Agricultural
Grains, food and fiber
Symbol from
Commodity Main exchange MIC Contract size Symbol
Corn CBOT XCBT 5000 bu C/ZC (Electronic)
Corn EURONEXT 50 tons EMA
Corn DCE XDCE 10 metric tons c
Oats CBOT XCBT 5000 bu O/ZO (Electronic)
Rough Rice CBOT XCBT 2000 cwt ZR
Soybeans CBOT XCBT 5000 bu S/ZS (Electronic)
No 2. Soybean DCE XDCE 10 metric tons b
Rapeseed EURONEXT 50 tons ECO
Soybean Meal CBOT XCBT 100 short tons SM/ZM (Electronic)
Soy Meal DCE XDCE 10 metric tons m
Soybean Oil CBOT XCBT 60,000 lb BO/ZL (Electronic)
Soybean Oil DCE XDCE 10 metric tons y
Wheat CBOT XCBT 5000 bu W/ZW (Electronic)
Wheat EURONEXT 50 tons EBL
Milk CME XCME 200,000 lbs DC
Cocoa ICE IEPA 10 tons CC
Coffee C ICE IEPA 37,500 lb KC
Cotton No.2 ICE IEPA 50,000 lb CT
Sugar No.11 ICE IEPA 112,000 lb SB
Sugar No.14 ICE IEPA 112,000 lb SE
Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice ICE IEPA 15,000 lbs FCOJ-A
Adzuki bean OSE XOSE 2400 kg
Robusta coffee ICE IEPA 10,000kg
Livestock and meat
Commodity Contract size Currency Main exchange Symbol
Lean Hogs 40,000 lb (20 tons) USD ($) Chicago Mercantile Exchange HE
Live Cattle 40,000 lb (20 tons) USD ($) Chicago Mercantile Exchange LE
Feeder Cattle 50,000 lb (25 tons) USD ($) Chicago Mercantile Exchange GF
Energy
Commodity Main exchange Contract size Symbol
WTI Crude Oil NYMEX, ICE 1000 bbl (42,000 U.S. gal) CL (NYMEX), WTI (ICE)
Brent Crude ICE 1000 bbl (42,000 U.S. gal) B
Ethanol CBOT 29,000 U.S. gal AC (Open Auction) ZE (Electronic)
Natural gas NYMEX 10,000 million BTU NG
Natural gas ICE 1,000 therms NBP
Heating Oil NYMEX 1000 bbl (42,000 U.S. gal) HO
Gulf Coast Gasoline NYMEX 1000 bbl (42,000 U.S. gal) LR
RBOB Gasoline (reformulated gasoline blendstock for oxygen blending) NYMEX 1000 bbl (42,000 U.S. gal) RB
Propane NYMEX 1000 bbl (42,000 U.S. gal) PN
Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) ZCE 5 tons TA
Forest products
Commodity Main exchange Contract size Symbol
Random Length Lumber Chicago Mercantile Exchange 110,000 nominal board feet LBS
Hardwood Pulp Chicago Mercantile Exchange 20 metric tonnes HWP
Softwood Pulp Chicago Mercantile Exchange 20 metric tonnes WP
Metals
Industrial Metals
Commodity Contract size Currency Main exchange Symbol
LME Copper Metric Ton USD ($) London Metal Exchange, New York HG
Lead Metric Ton USD ($) London Metal Exchange
Zinc Metric Ton USD ($) London Metal Exchange
Tin Metric Ton USD ($) London Metal Exchange
Aluminium Metric Ton USD ($) London Metal Exchange, New York
Aluminium alloy Metric Ton USD ($) London Metal Exchange
LME Nickel Metric Ton USD ($) London Metal Exchange
Cobalt Metric Ton USD ($) London Metal Exchange
Molybdenum Metric Ton USD ($) London Metal Exchange
Precious Metals
Commodity Contract size Currency Main exchange Symbol
Gold 100 troy ounces USD ($) COMEX GC
Platinum 50 troy ounces USD ($) NYMEX PL
Palladium 100 troy ounces USD ($) NYMEX PA
Silver 5,000 troy ounces USD ($) COMEX SI
Other
Commodity Contract size Currency Main exchange
Palm Oil 1000 kg Malaysian Ringgit (RM) Bursa Malaysia
Rubber 5000 kg US cents (¢) Osaka Exchange
Wool 2500 kg AUD ($) ASX
Amber 1 kg Rub (₽) Saint Petersburg "Bourse"
List of largest global commodities trading companies
Vitol
Glencore International AG
Trafigura
Cargill
Salam Investment
Archer Daniels Midland
Gunvor (company)
Beddu-Trading
Mercuria Energy Group
Noble Group
Louis Dreyfus Group
Bunge Limited
Wilmar International
Olam International
Cannon Trading Company
Prime Trading, LLC
Knarr Bank
Commodity exchanges and regulators
Chicago Board of Trade
Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Dubai Mercantile Exchange
Euronext
ICE Futures Abu Dhabi
London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange
NASDAQ OMX Commodities
National Futures Association
New York Mercantile Exchange
Kansas City Board of Trade
New York Board of Trade
LedgerX
Dalian Commodity Exchange
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market manipulation. : 2
In addition to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which created it, the SEC enforces the Securities Act of 1933, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, and other statutes. The SEC was created by Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (now codified as 15 U.S.C. § 78d and commonly referred to as the Exchange Act or the 1934 Act).
The SEC has a three-part mission: to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation.
To achieve its mandate, the SEC enforces the statutory requirement that public companies and other regulated companies submit quarterly and annual reports, as well as other periodic reports. In addition to annual financial reports, company executives must provide a narrative account, called the "management discussion and analysis" (MD&A), that outlines the previous year of operations and explains how the company fared in that time period. MD&A will usually also touch on the upcoming year, outlining future goals and approaches to new projects. In an attempt to level the playing field for all investors, the SEC maintains an online database called EDGAR (the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system) online from which investors can access this and other information filed with the agency.
Quarterly and semiannual reports from public companies are crucial for investors to make sound decisions when investing in the capital markets. Unlike banking, investment in the capital markets is not guaranteed by the federal government. The potential for big gains needs to be weighed against that of sizable losses. Mandatory disclosure of financial and other information about the issuer and the security itself gives private individuals as well as large institutions the same basic facts about the public companies they invest in, thereby increasing public scrutiny while reducing insider trading and fraud.
The SEC makes reports available to the public through the EDGAR system. The SEC also offers publications on investment-related topics for public education. The same online system also takes tips and complaints from investors to help the SEC track down violators of the securities laws. The SEC adheres to a strict policy of never commenting on the existence or status of an ongoing investigation.
History
Background
Prior to the enactment of the federal securities laws and the creation of the SEC, securities trading was governed by so-called blue sky laws. These laws were enacted and enforced at the state level and regulated the offering and sale of securities to protect the public from fraud. Though the specific provisions of these laws varied among states, they all required the registration of all securities offerings and sales, as well as of every U.S. stockbroker and brokerage firm. However, blue sky laws were generally considered ineffective. For example, as early as 1915, the Investment Bankers Association told its members that they could circumvent blue sky laws by making securities offerings across state lines through the mail.
Founding
The SEC's authority was established by the Securities Act of 1933 and Securities Exchange Act of 1934; both laws are considered parts of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program.
After the Pecora Commission hearings on abuses and frauds in securities markets, Congress passed the Securities Act of 1933 (15 U.S.C. § 77a), which federally regulates original issues of securities across state lines, primarily by requiring that issuing companies register distributions prior to sale so that investors may access basic financial information and make informed decisions. For the first year of the law's enactment, the enforcement of the statute rested with the Federal Trade Commission.
The subsequent Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. § 78d) regulates secondary markets for securities. The 1934 Act regulates secondary trading between individuals and companies which are often unrelated to the original issuers of securities. Entities under the SEC's authority include securities exchanges with physical trading floors such as the New York Stock Exchange, self-regulatory organizations, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, NASDAQ, alternative trading systems, and any other persons engaged in transactions for the accounts of others. Section 4 of the 1934 Act transferred the FTC's enforcement authority under the 1933 Act to the newly created Securities and Exchange Commission and tasked the new Commission with enforcing both Acts.
In 1934, Roosevelt named his friend Joseph P. Kennedy, a self-made multimillionaire, financier, and leader among the Irish-American community, as chairman of the SEC. Roosevelt chose Kennedy partly based on his experience on Wall Street. Two of the other five commissioners were James M. Landis and Ferdinand Pecora. Kennedy added a number of intelligent young lawyers to the SEC staff, including William O. Douglas and Abe Fortas, both of whom later became Supreme Court Justices.
Kennedy's team defined four missions for the new Commission: (1) to restore investor confidence in the securities market, which had practically collapsed; (2) to restore integrity to securities markets by prosecuting and eliminating fraudulent and unsound practices targeting investors; (3) to end million-dollar insider trading by top officials of major corporations; and (4) to establish a complex and universal system of registration for securities sold in America, with a clear-cut set of deadlines, rules and guidelines. The SEC succeeded; Kennedy reassured the American business community that they would no longer be deceived and tricked and taken advantage of by Wall Street. He became a cheerleader for ordinary investors to return to the market and enable the economy to grow again.
Later SEC commissioners and chairmen include William O. Douglas, Jerome Frank, and William J. Casey.
Since 1994, most registration statements (and associated materials) filed with the SEC can be accessed via the SEC's online system, EDGAR.
In 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society introduced an online gallery to illustrate changes in the US securities market structure since the 1930s. The online gallery features a narrative history supported by dozens of documents, papers, interviews, photos and videos.
List of chairs
See also: List of members of the Securities and Exchange Commission
No. Portrait Name State of residency Term of office Appointed by
Term start Term end Time in office
1 Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. Massachusetts June 30, 1934 September 23, 1935 1 year, 85 days Roosevelt
2 James M. Landis James M. Landis Massachusetts September 23, 1935 September 15, 1937 1 year, 357 days Roosevelt
3 William O. Douglas William O. Douglas Connecticut August 17, 1937 April 15, 1939 1 year, 241 days Roosevelt
4 Jerome Frank Jerome Frank Illinois May 18, 1939 April 9, 1941 1 year, 326 days Roosevelt
5 Edward C. Eicher Edward C. Eicher Iowa April 9, 1941 January 20, 1942 286 days Roosevelt
6 Ganson Purcell January 20, 1942 June 30, 1946 4 years, 161 days Roosevelt
7 James J. Caffrey July 23, 1946 December 31, 1947 1 year, 161 days Truman
8 Edmond M. Hanrahan New York May 18, 1948 November 3, 1949 1 year, 169 days Truman
9 Harry A. McDonald November 4, 1949 February 25, 1952 2 years, 113 days Truman
10 Donald C. Cook Michigan February 26, 1952 June 17, 1953 1 year, 111 days Truman
11 Ralph H. Demmler Pennsylvania June 27, 1953 May 25, 1955 1 year, 332 days Eisenhower
12 J. Sinclair Armstrong New York May 25, 1955 June 27, 1957 2 years, 33 days Eisenhower
13 Edward N. Gadsby Massachusetts August 20, 1957 March 26, 1961 3 years, 218 days Eisenhower
14 William L. Cary March 27, 1961 August 20, 1964 3 years, 146 days Kennedy
15 Manuel F. Cohen August 20, 1964 February 22, 1969 4 years, 186 days Johnson
16 Hamer Budge Hamer H. Budge Idaho February 22, 1969 January 2, 1971 1 year, 314 days Nixon
17 William J. Casey William J. Casey New York April 14, 1971 February 2, 1973 1 year, 294 days Nixon
18 G. Bradford Cook Nebraska March 3, 1973 May 16, 1973 74 days Nixon
19 Ray Garrett Jr. Illinois August 6, 1973 October 28, 1975 2 years, 83 days Nixon
20 Roderick M. Hills California October 28, 1975 April 10, 1977 1 year, 164 days Ford
21 Harold M. Williams California April 18, 1977 March 1, 1981 3 years, 317 days Carter
22 John S. R. Shad May 6, 1981 June 18, 1987 6 years, 43 days Reagan
23 David Sturtevant Ruder Illinois August 7, 1987 September 30, 1989 2 years, 54 days Reagan
24 Richard C. Breeden New York October 11, 1989 May 7, 1993 3 years, 208 days Bush Sr.
– Mary Schapiro Mary Schapiro (acting) New York May 7, 1993 July 27, 1993 81 days Clinton
25 Arthur Levitt Arthur Levitt New York July 27, 1993 February 9, 2001 7 years, 227 days Clinton
26 Harvey Pitt Harvey Pitt New York August 3, 2001 February 18, 2003 1 year, 199 days Bush Jr.
27 William H. Donaldson William H. Donaldson New York February 18, 2003 June 30, 2005 2 years, 132 days Bush Jr.
28 Christopher Cox Christopher Cox California August 3, 2005 January 20, 2009 3 years, 170 days Bush Jr.
29 Mary Schapiro Mary Schapiro New York January 27, 2009 December 14, 2012 3 years, 322 days Obama
30 Elisse B. Walter Elisse B. Walter New York December 14, 2012 April 10, 2013 117 days Obama
31 Mary Jo White Mary Jo White New York April 10, 2013 January 20, 2017 3 years, 285 days Obama
– Michael Piwowar Michael Piwowar (acting) Washington D.C. January 20, 2017 May 4, 2017 104 days Trump
32 Jay Clayton (attorney) Jay Clayton Pennsylvania May 4, 2017 December 23, 2020 3 years, 233 days Trump
– Elad Roisman Elad Roisman (acting) Washington D.C. December 24, 2020 January 20, 2021 27 days Trump
– Allison Lee Allison Lee (acting) Washington D.C. January 20, 2021 April 17, 2021 87 days Biden
33 Gary Gensler Gary Gensler Maryland April 17, 2021 Incumbent 2 years, 108 days Biden
Organizational structure
Commission members
The commission has five commissioners who are appointed by the President of the United States. No more than three Commissioners may belong to the same political party. Their terms last five years and are staggered so that one commissioner's term ends on June 5 of each year. Service may continue up to eighteen additional months past term expiration.
The president also designates one of the commissioners as chairman, the SEC's top executive. However, the president does not possess the power to fire the appointed Commissioners, a provision that was made to ensure the independence of the SEC. This issue arose during the 2008 presidential election in connection with the ensuing financial crises.
Current SEC Commissioners
Name Party Took office Term expires
Gary Gensler (Chair) Democratic April 17, 2021 June 5, 2026
Mark Uyeda Republican June 30, 2022 June 5, 2023
Caroline A. Crenshaw Democratic August 17, 2020 June 5, 2024
Hester Peirce Republican January 11, 2018 June 5, 2025
Jaime Lizárraga Democratic July 18, 2022 June 5, 2027
Divisions
Within the SEC, there are five divisions. Headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The SEC's divisions are:
Corporation Finance
Trading and Markets
Investment Management
Enforcement
Economic and Risk Analysis
Corporation Finance is the division that oversees the disclosure made by public companies, as well as the registration of transactions, such as mergers, made by companies. The division is also responsible for operating EDGAR.
The Trading and Markets division oversees self-regulatory organizations (SRO's) such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) and all broker-dealer firms and investment houses. This division also interprets proposed changes to regulations and monitors operations of the industry. In practice, the SEC delegates most of its enforcement and rulemaking authority to FINRA. In fact, all trading firms not regulated by other SROs must register as a member of FINRA. Individuals trading securities must pass exams administered by FINRA to become registered representatives.
The Investment Management Division oversees registered investment companies, which include mutual funds, as well as registered investment advisors. These entities are subject to extensive regulation under various federal securities laws. The Division of Investment Management administers various federal securities laws, in particular, the Investment Company Act of 1940 and Investment Advisers Act of 1940. This division's responsibilities include:
assisting the Commission in interpreting laws and regulations for the public and SEC inspection and enforcement staff;
responding to no-action requests and requests for exemptive relief;
reviewing investment company and investment adviser filings;
assisting the Commission in enforcement matters involving investment companies and advisers; and
advising the commission on adapting SEC rules to new circumstances.
The Enforcement Division investigates violations of the securities laws and regulations to bring legal actions against alleged violators. It is the largest division in terms of both headcount and budget, and its resources have been increased by more than half since the financial crisis of 2007–2008. The SEC can bring a civil action in a U.S. District Court, or an administrative proceeding which is heard by an independent administrative law judge (ALJ). The SEC does not have criminal authority but may refer matters to state and federal prosecutors.
The Economic and Risk Analysis Division (DERA) was created in September 2009 to integrate financial economics and rigorous data analytics into the core mission of the SEC. The Division is involved across the entire range of SEC activities, including policy-making, rule-making, enforcement, and examination. As the agency's "think tank," DERA relies on a variety of academic disciplines, quantitative and non-quantitative approaches, and knowledge of market institutions and practices to help the Commission approach complex matters in a fresh light. DERA also assists in the commission's efforts to identify, analyze, and respond to risks and trends, including those associated with new financial products and strategies. Through the range and nature of its activities, DERA serves the critical function of promoting collaborative efforts throughout the agency and breaking through silos that might otherwise limit the impact of the agency's institutional expertise. The Division's activities include providing detailed, high-quality economic and statistical analyzes, and specific subject-matter expertise to the Commission and other Divisions/Offices and developing customized, analytic tools and analyzes to proactively detect market risks indicative of possible violations of the Federal securities laws. Using data, DERA staff create analytic programs designed to detect patterns identifying risks, enabling Commission divisions and offices to deploy scarce resources targeting possible misconduct. DERA also houses the commission's Chief Economist.
Regional offices
There are 11 regional offices throughout the US, which are listed below along with the name of the respective regional director.
Atlanta – Nekia Hackworth Jones
Boston – Silvestre A. Fontes
Chicago – Daniel Gregus
Denver – Jason Burt
Fort Worth – Eric R. Werner
Los Angeles – Katharine Zoladz, J. Cindy Eson
Miami – Eric I. Bustillo
New York City – Antonia M. Apps
Philadelphia – Nicholas P. Grippo
Salt Lake City – Tracy S. Combs
San Francisco – Monique Winkler
Among the SEC's offices are:
The Office of General Counsel, which acts as the agency's "lawyer" before federal appellate courts and provides legal advice to the Commission and other SEC divisions and offices;
The Office of the Chief Accountant, which establishes and enforces accounting and auditing policies set by the SEC. This office has played a role in such areas as working with the Financial Accounting Standards Board to develop Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in developing audit requirements, and the International Accounting Standards Board in advancing the development of International Financial Reporting Standards;
The Office of Compliance, Inspections and Examinations, which inspects broker-dealers, stock exchanges, credit rating agencies, registered investment companies, including both closed-end and open-end (mutual funds) investment companies, money funds. and Registered Investment Advisors;
The Office of International Affairs, which represents the SEC abroad and which negotiates international enforcement information-sharing agreements, develops the SEC's international regulatory policies in areas such as mutual recognition, and helps develop international regulatory standards through organizations such as the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the Financial Stability Forum; and
The Office of Information Technology, which supports the commission and staff in information technology, including application development, infrastructure operations. and engineering, user support, IT program management, capital planning, security, and enterprise architecture.
The Inspector General. The SEC announced in January 2013 that it had named Carl Hoecker the new inspector general. He has a staff of 22.
The SEC Office of the Whistleblower provides assistance and information from a whistleblower who knows of possible securities law violations: this can be among the most powerful weapons in the law enforcement arsenal of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Created by Section 922 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act amended the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act") by, among other things, adding Section 21F, entitled "Securities Whistleblower Incentives and Protection". Section 21F directs the commission to make monetary awards to eligible individuals who voluntarily provide original information that leads to successful Commission enforcement actions resulting in the imposition of monetary sanctions over $1,000,000, and certain successful related actions.
Communications
Comment letters
Comment letters are issued by the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance in response to a company's public filing. This letter, initially private, contains an itemized list of requests from the SEC. Each comment in the letter asks the filer to provide additional information, modify their submitted filing, or change the way they disclose in future filings. The filer must reply to each item in the comment letter. The SEC may then reply back with follow-up comments. This correspondence is later made public.
In October 2001 the SEC wrote to CA, Inc., covering 15 items, mostly about CA's accounting, including 5 about revenue recognition. The chief executive officer of CA, to whom the letter was addressed, pleaded guilty to fraud at CA in 2004.
In June 2004, the SEC announced that it would publicly post all comment letters, to give investors access to the information in them. An analysis of regulatory filings in May 2006 over the prior 12 months indicated, that the SEC had not accomplished what it said it would do. The analysis found 212 companies that had reported receiving comment letters from the SEC, but only 21 letters for these companies were posted on the SEC's website. John W. White, the head of the Division of Corporation Finance, told the New York Times in 2006: "We have now resolved the hurdles of posting the information... We expect a significant number of new postings in the coming months."
No-action letters
No-action letters are letters by the SEC staff indicating that the staff will not recommend to the Commission that the SEC undertake enforcement action against a person or company if that entity engages in a particular action. These letters are sent in response to requests made when the legal status of an activity is not clear. These letters are publicly released and increase the body of knowledge on what exactly is and is not allowed. They represent the staff's interpretations of the securities laws and, while persuasive, are not binding on the courts.
One such use, from 1975 to 2007, was with the nationally recognized statistical rating organization (NRSRO), a credit rating agency that issues credit ratings that the SEC permits other financial firms to use for certain regulatory purposes.
Freedom of Information Act processing performance
In the latest Center for Effective Government analysis of 15 federal agencies which receive the most Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests published in 2015 (using 2012 and 2013 data, the most recent years available), the SEC was among the 5 lowest performers, earned a D− by scoring 61 out of a possible 100 points, i.e. did not earn a satisfactory overall grade. It had deteriorated from a D− in 2013.
Operations
List of major SEC enforcement actions (2009–12)
The SEC's Enforcement Division took a number of major actions in 2009–12.
Regulatory action in the credit crunch
The SEC announced on September 17, 2008, strict new rules to prohibit all forms of "naked short selling" as a measure to reduce volatility in turbulent markets.
The SEC investigated cases involving individuals attempting to manipulate the market by passing false rumors about certain financial institutions. The commission has also investigated trading irregularities and abusive short-selling practices. Hedge fund managers, broker-dealers, and institutional investors were also asked to disclose under oath certain information pertaining to their positions in credit default swaps. The commission also negotiated the largest settlements in the history of the SEC (approximately $51 billion in all) on behalf of investors who purchased auction rate securities from six different financial institutions.
Regulatory failures
The SEC has been criticized "for being too 'tentative and fearful' in confronting wrongdoing on Wall Street", and for doing "an especially poor job of holding executives accountable".
Christopher Cox, the former SEC chairman, has recognized the organization's multiple failures in relation to the Bernard Madoff fraud. Starting with an investigation in 1992 into a Madoff feeder fund that only invested with Madoff, and which, according to the SEC, promised "curiously steady" returns, the SEC did not investigate indications that something was amiss in Madoff's investment firm. The SEC has been accused of missing numerous red flags and ignoring tips on Madoff's alleged fraud.
As a result, Cox said that an investigation would ensue into "all staff contact and relationships with the Madoff family and firm, and their impact, if any, on decisions by staff regarding the firm". SEC Assistant Director of the Office of Compliance Investigations Eric Swanson had met Madoff's niece, Shana Madoff, when Swanson was conducting an SEC examination of whether Bernard Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme because she was the firm's compliance attorney. The investigation was closed, and Swanson subsequently left the SEC, and married Shana Madoff.
Approximately 45 percent of institutional investors thought that better oversight by the SEC could have prevented the Madoff fraud. Harry Markopolos complained to the SEC's Boston office in 2000, telling the SEC staff they should investigate Madoff because it was impossible to legally make the profits Madoff claimed using the investment strategies that he said he used.
In June 2010, the SEC settled a wrongful termination lawsuit with former SEC enforcement lawyer Gary J. Aguirre, who was terminated in September 2005 following his attempt to subpoena Wall Street figure John J. Mack in an insider trading case involving hedge fund Pequot Capital Management; Mary Jo White, who later served as chair of the SEC, was at the time representing Morgan Stanley and was involved in this case. While the insider case was dropped at the time, a month prior to the SEC's settlement with Aguirre the SEC filed charges against Pequot. The Senate released a report in August 2007 detailing the issue and calling for reform of the SEC.
On September 26, 2016, Democratic senator Mark Warner sent a letter to the SEC, asking them to evaluate whether the current disclosure regime was adequate, citing the low number of companies' disclosures to date.
Inspector General office failures
In 2009, the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group, sent a letter to Congress criticizing the SEC for failing to implement more than half of the recommendations made to it by its Inspector General. According to POGO, in the prior two years, the SEC had taken no action on 27 out of 52 recommended reforms suggested in Inspector General reports, and still had a "pending" status on 197 of the 312 recommendations made in audit reports. Some of the recommendations included imposing disciplinary action on SEC employees who receive improper gifts or other favors from financial companies, and investigating and reporting the causes of the failures to detect the Madoff ponzi scheme.
In a 2011 article by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, former SEC employees were interviewed and commented negatively on the SEC's Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Going to the OIG was "well-known to be a career-killer".
Because of concerns raised by David P. Weber, former SEC Chief Investigator, regarding conduct by SEC Inspector General H. David Kotz, Inspector General David C. Williams of the U.S. Postal Service was brought in to conduct an independent, outside review of Kotz's alleged improper conduct in 2012. Williams concluded in his 66-page Report that Kotz violated ethics rules by overseeing probes that involved people with whom he had conflicts of interest due to "personal relationships". The report questioned Kotz's work on the Madoff investigation, among others, because Kotz was a "very good friend" with Markopolos. It concluded that while it was unclear when Kotz and Markopolos became friends, it would have violated U.S. ethics rules if their relationship began before or during Kotz's Madoff investigation. The report also found that Kotz himself "appeared to have a conflict of interest" and should not have opened his Standford investigation, because he was friends with a female attorney who represented victims of the fraud.
Destruction of documents
According to former SEC employee and whistleblower Darcy Flynn, also reported by Taibbi, the agency routinely destroyed thousands of documents related to preliminary investigations of alleged crimes committed by Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, SAC Capital, and other financial companies involved in the Great Recession that the SEC was supposed to have been regulating. The documents included those relating to "Matters Under Inquiry", or MUI, the name the SEC gives to the first stages of the investigation process. The tradition of destruction began as early as the 1990s. This SEC activity eventually caused a conflict with the National Archives and Records Administration when it was revealed to them in 2010 by Flynn. Flynn also described a meeting at the SEC in which top staff discussed refusing to admit the destruction had taken place, because it was possibly illegal.
Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley, among others, took note of Flynn's call for protection as a whistleblower, and the story of the agency's document-handling procedures. The SEC issued a statement defending its procedures. NPR quoted University of Denver Sturm College of Law professor Jay Brown as saying: "My initial take on this is it's a tempest in a teapot," and Jacob Frenkel, a securities lawyer in the Washington, D.C., area, as saying in effect "there's no allegation the SEC tossed sensitive documents from banks it got under subpoena in high-profile cases that investors and lawmakers care about". NPR concluded its report:
The debate boils down to this: What does an investigative record mean to Congress? And the courts? Under the law, those investigative records must be kept for 25 years. But federal officials say no judge has ruled that papers related to early-stage SEC inquiries are investigative records. The SEC's inspector general says he's conducting a thorough investigation into the allegations. [Kotz] tells NPR that he'll issue a report by the end of September.
SEC And Cryptocurrency
On June 6, 2023 the SEC charged Coinbase for "operating as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency." On June 5, 2023 the SEC also filed 13 charges against Binance entities and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.
One major contention between the SEC and the crypto industry is based on the definition of what a security actually is. At this time the SEC is relying on a U.S. Supreme Court case from 1946 which dealt with investors in Florida orange groves owned by the W. J. Howey Company. In the case the court ruled that "an investment of money in a common enterprise with profits to come solely from the efforts of others," making it a security called an investment contract. Whereby, the value of digital assets, their associated blockchain systems and investor profits depended on the "efforts of others."
Whistleblower program
The SEC runs a whistleblower rewards program, which rewards individuals who report violations of securities laws to the SEC. The program began in 2011 with the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and allows whistleblowers to be given 10-30% of the penalties collected by the SEC and other agencies as a result of the whistleblower's information. As of 2021, the SEC had recovered $4.8 billion in monetary remedies as a result of information obtained through the whistleblower program and had paid out over $1 billion to whistleblowers. As part of the program, the SEC issues a report to Congress each year and the 2021 report is available here.
Relationship to other agencies
In addition to working with various self-regulatory organizations such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), and Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), the SEC also works with federal agencies, state securities regulators, international securities agencies and law enforcement agencies.
In 1988 Executive Order 12631 established the President's Working Group on Financial Markets. The Working Group is chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury and includes the Chairman of the SEC, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The goal of the Working Group is to enhance the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of the financial markets while maintaining investor confidence. m
The Securities Act of 1933 was originally administered by the Federal Trade Commission. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 transferred this responsibility from the FTC to the SEC. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 also gave the SEC the power to regulate the solicitation of proxies, though some of the rules the SEC has since proposed (like the universal proxy) have been controversial. : 4 : 2 The main mission of the FTC is to promote consumer protection and to eradicate anti-competitive business practices. The FTC regulates general business practices, while the SEC focuses on the securities markets.
The Temporary National Economic Committee was established by joint resolution of Congress 52 Stat. 705 on June 16, 1938. It was in charge of reporting to Congress on abuses of monopoly power. The committee was defunded in 1941, but its records are still under seal by order of the SEC.
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) was established in 1975 by Congress to develop rules for companies involved in underwriting and trading municipal securities. The MSRB is monitored by the SEC, but the MSRB does not have the authority to enforce its rules.
The Asset Management Advisory Committee (AMAC) was formally established on 1 November 2019, to provide the SEC with "diverse perspectives on asset management and related advice and recommendations". Topics the committee may address include trends and developments affecting investors and market participants, the effects of globalization, and changes in the role of technology and service providers. The committee is composed of outside experts, including individuals representing the views of retail and institutional investors, small and large funds, intermediaries, and other market participants.
While most violations of securities laws are enforced by the SEC and the various SROs it monitors, state securities regulators can also enforce statewide securities blue sky laws. States may require securities to be registered in the state before they can be sold there. National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996 (NSMIA) addressed this dual system of federal-state regulation by amending Section 18 of the 1933 Act to exempt nationally traded securities from state registration, thereby pre-empting state law in this area. However, NSMIA preserves the states' anti-fraud authority over all securities traded in the state.
The SEC also works with federal and state law enforcement agencies to carry out actions against actors alleged to be in violation of the securities laws.
The SEC is a member of International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), and uses the IOSCO Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding as well as direct bilateral agreements with other countries' securities commissions to deal with cross-border misconduct in securities markets.
Related legislation
1933: Securities Act of 1933
1934: Securities Exchange Act of 1934
1938: Temporary National Economic Committee (establishment)
1939: Trust Indenture Act of 1939
1940: Investment Advisers Act of 1940
1940: Investment Company Act of 1940
1968: Williams Act (Securities Disclosure Act)
1982: Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act
1999: Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act
2000: Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000
2002: Sarbanes–Oxley Act
2003: Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003
2006: Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006
2010: Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
2012: Volcker Rule (a specific section of the Dodd–Frank Act)
2020: Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act
Title 17 of the Code of Federal Regulations
Ripple Labs, Inc. is an American technology company which develops the Ripple payment protocol and exchange network. Originally named Opencoin and renamed in 2015, the company was founded in 2012 and is based in San Francisco, California.
History
Ryan Fugger conceived Ripple in 2004 after working on a local exchange trading system in Vancouver. The intent was to create a monetary system that was decentralized and could effectively empower individuals and communities to create their own money. Fugger later built the first iteration of this system, RipplePay.com. Concurrently, in May 2011, Jed McCaleb began developing a digital currency system in which transactions were verified by consensus among members of the network, rather than by the mining process used by Bitcoin. In August 2012, Jed McCaleb hired Chris Larsen and they approached Ryan Fugger with their digital currency idea. After discussions with McCaleb and long-standing members of the Ripple community, Fugger handed over the reins. In September 2012, Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb co-founded the corporation OpenCoin.
OpenCoin began development of the ripple protocol (RTXP) and the Ripple payment and exchange network. On April 11, 2013, OpenCoin announced it had closed an angel round of funding with several venture capital firms. That same month, OpenCoin acquired SimpleHoney to help it popularize virtual currencies and make them easier for average users.
On September 26, 2013, OpenCoin officially changed its name to Ripple Labs, Inc.
On May 5, 2015, Ripple received a US$700,000 (equivalent to $864,215 in 2022) civil money penalty from U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for “willful violation of the Bank Secrecy Act by acting as a money services business without registering with FinCEN.” On October 6, 2015, the company was rebranded from Ripple Labs to Ripple.
On June 13, 2016, Ripple obtained a virtual currency license from the New York State Department of Financial Services, making it the fourth company with a BitLicense.
In September 2017, R3 sued Ripple for specific performance of an option agreement in which Ripple agreed to sell up to five billion XRPs for a price of $.0085. Ripple countersued, claiming that R3 reneged on a number of contractual promises, and was simply acting in a spirit of opportunism, after the cryptocurrency increased in value more than 30 times. In September 2018, Ripple and R3 reached an undisclosed settlement agreement.
In March 2018, a Japanese bank consortium led by SBI Ripple Asia, comprising 61 banks launched "MoneyTap", a Ripple-powered mobile app to provide on-demand domestic payments in Japan. In May 2018, Spanish Banking group Santander released One Pay FX — the first mobile application for international payments powered by blockchain technology, that uses Ripple's xCurrent technology. Following the creation of a Mumbai office, Ripple has been adding multiple Indian customers in 2018, including leading banks such as Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, and IndusInd, that announced that they started using Ripple's products.
On December 22, 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Ripple and two of its executives with violating investor protection laws. The SEC alleged that Ripple, co-founder Christian Larsen and CEO Bradley Garlinghouse, raised more than $1.3 billion through an unregistered securities offering. The government agency brought charges against Ripple for the fault of depriving the “potential purchasers [of XRP] of adequate disclosures about XRP and Ripple’s business and other important long-standing protections that are fundamental to our robust public market system,” according to the complaint that the SEC filed in federal district court in Manhattan, New York. In April 2021, Judge Sarah Netburn granted a motion from Garlinghouse and Larsen to dismiss the SEC's subpoenas for access to eight years' of banking records, referring to the request as a "wholly inappropriate overreach." The defendants have already agreed to turn over all data involving XRP transactions.
In May 2023, Ripple acquired Metaco, a Switzerland-based crypto custody firm for $250 million.
In June 2023, Ripple received approval for a license from the central bank of Singapore to offer regulated digital payment token products and services.
In July 2023, the district court issued its ruling on the SEC lawsuit and stated that the XRP token sold by Ripple Labs was not a security: "XRP, as a digital token, is not in and of itself a 'contract, transaction, or scheme' that embodies the Howey requirements of an investment contract." However, if sold in institutional sales, or used as a fundraiser, such actions could be classified as a security in those circumstances. More specifically, the programmatic sale on cryptocurrency exchanges do not meet the third prong of the Howey Test, so subsequent sales by exchanges are not securities. Judge Analisa Torres issued a summary judgement in the case after over two years of litigation between the SEC and Ripple, so the case could subsequently go to a full trial, or be appealed.
Funding
The primary source of funding Ripple has been sales of the XRP cryptocurrency. According to its own records it sold $1,254.54 million worth of XRP between Q4 2016 and Q2 2020, to a mix of institutional investors and retail investors via sales on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Ripple is a privately funded company. It has closed five rounds of funding, which included two rounds of angel funding, one round of seed funding, one Series A round, one Series B round and one Series C round.
Date Funding
type Investor Amount
(million $)
April 2013 Angel Andreessen Horowitz, FF Angel LLC, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, Vast Ventures, Bitcoin Opportunity Fund 2.5
May 2013 Angel Google Ventures, IDG Capital Partners 3.0
November 2013 Seed Core Innovation Capital, Venture51, Camp One Ventures, IDG Capital Partners 3.5
May 2015 Series A IDG Capital Partners, Seagate Technology, AME Cloud Ventures, ChinaRock Capital Management, China Growth Capital, Wicklow Capital, Bitcoin Opportunity Corp, Core Innovation Capital, Route 66 Ventures, RRE Ventures, Vast Ventures, Venture 51 28
October 2015 Series A Santander InnoVentures 4
September 2016 Series B Standard Chartered, Accenture, SCB Digital Ventures, SBI Holdings, Santander InnoVentures, CME Group, Seagate Technology 55
December 2019 Series C Tetragon, SBI Holdings, Route 66 Ventures 200
Ripple's revenue sources include professional services provided to financial network operators being integrated with Ripple, software built to integrate legacy financial systems with Ripple and the native currency (XRP). Ripple (a private company registered in Delaware) chooses not to reveal information to the public about sales revenues from software and professional services.
Programs and projects
Charitable contributions
Of the 80 billion XRP that Ripple Labs was gifted, Ripple follows a distribution strategy that encompasses payments to business partners such as gateways, market makers and charitable organizations.
Ripple Labs began working with the World Community Grid in November 2013. The World Community Grid pools surplus processing power from volunteers’ computers and electronic devices to support humanitarian causes such as fighting AIDS, improving solar energy and defeating cancer. Individuals who join the Ripple Labs team and donate their spare processing power are rewarded with XRP. As of March 18, 2014, Ripple Labs has given away 134,528,800 XRP through the World Community Grid at a rate of 1,250,000 XRP per day.
In 2018, Ripple has made multiple donations. The company has donated $29 million of XRP to USA public schools, and $4 million to The Ellen DeGeneres Wildlife Fund
Partnerships and initiatives
In March 2014, CrossCoin Ventures launched an accelerator which funds companies that work to advance the Ripple ecosystem. The firm funds accepted startups with up to US$50,000 (equivalent to $61,808 in 2022) in XRP, Ripple's native currency, in exchange for a 3% to 6% stake in diluted common stock. Mentorship and support is provided by CrossCoin and Ripple Labs, Inc.
Ripple also developed early partnerships with companies such as ZipZap, with the relationship called a threat to Western Union in the press.
In cooperation with other industry leaders, Ripple Labs became a co-founding member of the Digital Asset Transfer Authority (DATA) in July 2013. DATA provides best practices and technical standards, including anti-money laundering compliance guidance for companies that work with digital currency and other emerging payments systems. The committee works as a liaison among public officials, businesses and consumers and create common rules to protect consumers. The initiative attempts to create a cohesive voice of Bitcoin community members when interacting with regulators.
In June 2018, Ripple has committed over $50 million in funding to create the University Blockchain Research Initiative, which aims at support research to:
Collaborate on research and technical development that will stimulate widespread understanding and innovation in blockchain.
Create new curriculum to meet high student demand for learning about blockchain, cryptocurrency and other FinTech topics.
Stimulate ideas and dialog among students, faculty, technologists and business leaders on topics of shared interest.
In May 2018, Ripple has announced "an initiative by Ripple that will invest in, incubate, acquire and provide grants to companies and projects that [...] will use the digital asset XRP and the XRP Ledger, the open-sourced, decentralized technology behind XRP, to solve their customers’ problems.".
In March 2019, Ripple announced a $100 Million fund for gaming developers which would be overseen by Forte.
Awards and recognitions
For its creation and development of the ripple protocol (RTXP) and the Ripple payment/exchange network, the magazine MIT Technology Review recognized Ripple Labs as one of 2014s 50 Smartest Companies in its February 2014 issue. The criteria for the recognition revolved around "whether a company had made strides in the past year that will define its field."
On February 9, 2014, Ripple Labs was named as a finalist for a 2014 PYMNTS Innovator Award in two separate categories: Best New Technology as well as Most Disruptive Company. The recognition pertains to Ripple Labs work in creating Ripple, an open-source, distributed payment protocol powering a new global value web.
On January 12, 2016, Ripple was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at No. 8 in the list of 100 Most Influential Blockchain Organisations.
Other Awards:
February 2015 - Fast Company. The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies Of 2015 In Money.
February 2015 - American Banker. 20 Fintech Companies to Watch.
August 2015 - Ripple Labs Awarded as Technology Pioneer by World Economic Forum.
December 2015 - Forbes. Fintech 50.
December 2015 - H2 Ventures, KPMG. Fintech 100.
March 2016 - PYMNTS Innovation Project 2016. Best B2B Innovation Award.
June 2016 - Fortune. 5 Hottest Companies in Fintech.
Controversies
On May 5, 2015, FinCEN fined Ripple Labs and XRP II US$700,000 for violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, based on the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's anti-money laundering (AML) additions to the act in 2013. According to the FinCEN announcement: "Ripple Labs willfully violated several requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) by acting as a money services business (MSB) and selling its virtual currency, known as XRP, without registering with FinCEN, and by failing to implement and maintain an adequate anti-money laundering (AML) program designed to protect its products from use by money launderers or terrorist financiers."
Ripple Labs agreed to remedial steps to ensure future compliance, which included an agreement to only transact XRP and "Ripple Trade" activity through registered money services businesses (MSB), among other agreements such as enhancing the Ripple Protocol. It has been argued that the changes made to the protocol did not change the protocol itself, but instead added AML transaction monitoring to the network and improve transaction analysis. However the FinCen statement clearly indicated that Ripple itself was making changes to the protocol as a result of the enforcement action. "Ripple Labs will also undertake certain enhancements to the Ripple Protocol to appropriately monitor all future transactions."
Ripple executives, including CTO David Schwartz, have admitted the software that is sold to banks for payments processing, XCurrent, is not a blockchain or any form of distributed ledger. Schwartz described it as “bi-directional messaging” that can eventually plug into distributed ledgers, but xCurrent’s technology itself “is not a distributed ledger.”
In May 2018, Stewart Hosie MP, at a UK parliamentary inquiry into digital currencies, questioned Ryan Zagone of Ripple about the value and nature of the XRP Cryptocurrency: "...but the point that was made earlier, Mr Zagone, is that if people buy XRP—a financial asset—from Ripple Labs, it does not entitle them to an ownership stake, there is no right to be converted back into conventional currencies and it does not pay any return. It also seemingly has no purpose. Is that simply to avoid XRP looking like a security or an equity, and to avoid the necessary regulation?"
Ripple claims to be completely separate from and have no control over the XRP cryptocurrency, in spite of the FinCen press release describing XRP as "its virtual currency, known as XRP". However Ripple controls the vast majority of the supply of XRP and, according to its own published records, earns the majority of its income from selling XRP. They do own a lot of XRP but the network is not based on PoS, therefore the amount of XRP do not determine how much control you have over the network. The XRP Ledger has its own consensus algorithm with over 39 entities included in the overlap of all the currently published and used UNLs.
In 2018 CEO claimed on multiple occasions that by end of that year "major banks" would be using Ripple tools that made use of the XRP cryptocurrency and that by end of 2019 "dozens" of banks would be using XRP. Both claims by the end of 2019 were proven to be untrue. At a conference in June 2019, Hikmet Ersek, CEO of Western Union, commented that his company had experimented with Ripple in 2018 but had chosen not to adopt their cryptocurrency based payments software because, “It’s five times more expensive”, than using their existing infrastructure.
In 2018 and 2019 Garlinghouse claimed on multiple occasions that the published error rate for SWIFT messaging was at least 6%, this was shown to be untrue by research published by the London School of Economics Business Review that showed Garlinghouse's claims were based on mis-reading of a paper published by SWIFT that did not refer to error rates in messaging.
In February 2020 an article in Financial Times Alphaville revealed that Moneygram, the largest public user of Ripple's XRP based liquidity tools, has not only received a $50m investment prior to adopting the tools but that the software was provided free of charge by Ripple and that Moneygram was receiving an on-going subsidy for using XRP, amounting to $8.9m in Q4 2019. The same article revealed that Ripple was dependent on sales of XRP to remain profitable.
In October 2020, Ripple board member Ken Kurson resigned from the company when he was charged with committing a range of cyber-crimes by the United States Attorney for the southern district of New York.
List of major SEC enforcement actions (2009–2012)
The below list of major SEC enforcement actions (2009–12) reflects major actions that the Enforcement Division of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought in 2009–12.
The SEC is a federal agency of the United States. It holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets in the United States.
The Enforcement Division works with the SEC's other three divisions, and other Commission offices, to investigate violations of the securities laws and regulations and to bring actions against alleged violators. The SEC generally conducts investigations in private. The SEC's staff may seek voluntary production of documents and testimony, or may seek a formal order of investigation from the SEC, which allows the staff to compel the production of documents and witness testimony. The SEC can bring a civil action in a U.S. District Court, or an administrative proceeding which is heard by an independent administrative law judge (ALJ). The SEC does not have criminal authority, but may refer matters to state and federal prosecutors. The director of the SEC's Enforcement Division Robert Khuzami left the office in February 2013.
List
2009
In June 2009, the SEC sued Angelo Mozilo, former CEO of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, and two other former officers, charging that they misled investors about the quality of Countrywide's loans while knowing the company was fueling its growth by letting its underwriting guidelines deteriorate and originating a growing number of risky subprime loans. In October 2010, the SEC settled the lawsuit and Mozilo was required to pay a fraction of the $521.5 million he had earned, just $67.5 million in penalties and disgorgement.
In August 2009, the SEC filed a suit against Bank of America, alleging that the bank failed to disclose $3.6 billion in bonuses that Merrill Lynch paid its employees. In January 2010, the SEC filed another suit against the bank, alleging it failed to disclose extraordinary fourth-quarter 2008 losses at Merrill Lynch prior to a December 5, 2008 shareholder vote to approve a merger between it and Merrill Lynch. In February 2010, Jed S. Rakoff, a federal judge derided, but approved a settlement to resolve the lawsuits, having rejected a previous settlement for $33 million as too small. He called the new agreement "inadequate and misguided" because the penalties were "very modest".
In October 2009, relying on informants and wiretaps, Raj Rajaratnam and his hedge fund, Galleon Group, were charged with an insider trading scheme that generated more than $25 million in illicit gains. Six others involved in the scheme were also charged, including senior executives at IBM, Intel and McKinsey & Company. Overall, the SEC in the Galleon series of cases has charged 29 defendants for widespread and repeated insider trading in the securities of more than 15 publicly traded companies, generating illicit profits or losses avoided of more than $90 million. The investigation involves cash payments by Rajaratnam and Galleon in exchange for material nonpublic information, and the investigation has ensnared corporate executives, consultants, rating agency personnel, proprietary traders, hedge fund executives, and public relations personnel. Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years in prison in the parallel criminal case, and the court entered a final judgment in the SEC civil case holding him liable for a civil penalty of $92.8 million, representing the largest penalty ever assessed against an individual in an SEC insider trading case.
In December 2009, three former executives of New Century Financial Corporation were charged with conspiring to mislead investors by not disclosing dramatic increases in the rate of borrowers who were defaulting almost immediately on their loans.
2010
In April 2010, the SEC filed a suit against Goldman Sachs and one of its vice presidents, Fabrice Tourre, alleging that the firm misled investors with respect to a subprime mortgage product. The SEC charged that Goldman and Tourre did not inform clients that what they bought was crafted in part by hedge fund manager John Paulson, who was betting the product would fail. In July 2010, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $550 million to settle the case, among the largest penalties ever assessed in the 76-year history of the SEC, although just 1% of Goldman's market value at the time and 2% of its cash balance in March 2010, and considered to be a "slap on the wrist". The penalties prompted a sigh of relief from Goldman and Wall Street. In announcing the settlement, Robert Khuzami, current director of the Enforcement Division, twice referred to it as "more than half a billion dollars", but Michael J. Driscoll, a professor and former senior managing director at Bear Stearns called it "a steal". A former SEC commissioner, Paul Atkins, said he was "embarrassed, as an American," describing the suit as "basically playing for headlines with very little substance". Eliot Spitzer said Goldman's reaction was "OK, we'll pay you $550 million to settle the Abacus case — that's a small price to pay for the $12.9 billion we got for the AIG bailout." Khuzami states that the penalty paid by Goldman Sachs ($535 million) was "30 to 40 times" what the firm hoped to earn from the Abacus deal ($15 million), and such a significant penalty sends a "cold, hard and sharp" message to Wall Street and risk managers that they better think twice before undertaking transactions that violate the law.
In July 2010, Citigroup, with a market cap of $120 billion, agreed to pay a $75 million penalty to the SEC for its failure to adequately disclose its exposure to subprime mortgage debt. Citigroup advised investors it held $13 billion in subprime investments when in fact it was more than $50 billion. Fines for misconduct were also assessed against the former chief financial officer, Gary Crittenden, and director of investor relations, Arthur Tildesley.
In September 2010, John Flannery, a former chief investment officer of State Street Bank & Trust Company, and James Hopkins, a former product engineer there, were charged with misleading investors about the bank's exposure to subprime investments. Earlier in the year, the SEC announced a settlement in which State Street agreed to pay $313 million in connection with the charges.
In October 2010, the SEC charged two hedge fund portfolio managers and their investment advisory businesses, Palisades Asset Management, LLC with overvaluing illiquid fund assets they placed in a "side pocket," misappropriating investor assets, and making material misrepresentations in connection with a securities offering.
In December 2010, the SEC, the Department of Justice and other federal and state agencies announced the results of "Operation Broken Trust", a coordinated effort by the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to target investment fraud. The operation resulted in prosecutions against 310 criminal defendants involving $8.3 billion in losses and civil actions against 189 defendants involving $2.1 billion in losses for fraud schemes that victimized more than 120,000 people throughout the country.
2011
In FY 2011, the Enforcement Division filed 735 actions, an 8.6% increase over FY 2010 and more than any other year in SEC history. It also obtained $2.8 billion in penalties and disgorgement. More significantly, the filed actions involve many highly complex markets, products and transactions, as well as charges against a significant number of individuals. One commentator noted that despite budget and other restraints, the SEC has recently "had a string of successes," and has made progress "despite every disadvantage".
A sampling of FY 2011 and 2012 cases are set forth below.
In January 2011, the SEC charged Merrill Lynch with fraud for misusing customer order information to place proprietary trades for the firm and for charging customer undisclosed trading fees.
Also in January 2011, the SEC charged two Charles Schwab & Co. entities and two executives for failing to disclose the risks of investing in the YieldPlus fund, including its over-concentration in mortgage assets and that it was not, as Schwab advertised, a cash alternative that had only slightly higher risk than a money market fund.
In February 2011, the Commission brought charges in the "expert networking" insider trading cases, charging several technology company employees with tipping material nonpublic information concerning sales, earnings, and other performance data of their employers to multiple hedge funds and other investment professionals.
In February 2011, the SEC charged DHB Industries, a major supplier of body armor to the U.S. military and law enforcement agencies, for engaging in a large accounting fraud, and in addition separately charged three of DHB's former outside directors and audit committee members for their complicity in the scheme.
In March 2011, the SEC charged three senior executives at Fair Finance Company with orchestrating a $230 million fraudulent scheme involving at least 5,200 investors, many of them elderly, by selling them interest-bearing certificates allegedly used to purchase and service discounted consumer finance contracts, but instead diverting the proceeds to themselves and others for luxury personal goods as well as to struggling and unprofitable entities that they controlled.
In March 2011, the Commission charged Cheng Yi Liang, a chemist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with insider trading by trading securities using highly confidential information relating to FDA drug approvals that he accessed from an FDA database.
In April 2011, the Commission charged Matthew Kluger, a former corporate attorney, and Garrett Bauer, a Wall Street trader, for their involvement in a highly organized serial insider trading ring that traded in advance of at least 11 pending merger and acquisition announcements involving clients of the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
In April 2011, the SEC charged Wachovia with misconduct related to the sale of two collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), including charging excessive markups in sales to the Zuni Indian Tribe, and falsely representing that it acquired CDO assets at fair market prices when, in fact, 40 residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBs) were transferred from an affiliate at above-market prices to avoid losses on its own books.
In April 2011, the Commission charged Dr. Joseph "Chip" Skowron, a former portfolio manager for six health care-related hedge funds, with insider trading in a bio-pharmaceutical company based on confidential information he received unlawfully about the company's negative clinical drug trial results.
In May 2011, the Commission charged Donald L. Johnson, a former managing director of The NASDAQ Stock Market, with insider trading on confidential information that he misappropriated while working in a market intelligence unit that communicates with executives at listed companies about impending public announcements that could affect their stocks.
In May, July and December 2011, the SEC charged J.P. Morgan Securities, Wachovia Bank and UBS Financial Services for participating in a wide-ranging scheme involving the fraudulent manipulation of municipal bond reinvestment transactions. Including previous actions filed against GE Funding Capital Market Services and Banc of America Securities, a total of approximately $743 million has been recovered in these settlements by all law enforcement agencies, including the SEC, involved in the cases.
In June 2011, the SEC charged J.P. Morgan Securities and one individual with misleading investors in a complex mortgage securities transaction by not informing investors that a prominent hedge fund helped select the assets in the CDO portfolio and had a short position in more than half of those assets.
In August 2011, the SEC charged Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. and a former senior vice president with defrauding five Wisconsin school districts by selling them synthetic CDOs funded largely with $200 million of borrowed money.
In September 2011, the SEC charged AXA Rosenberg Group and its founder, Barr Rosenberg, with fraud for concealing a significant error in the computer code of the quantitative investment model used to manage client assets. AXA Rosenberg paid $217 million to compensate harmed investors and a $25 million penalty. Barr Rosenberg paid a $2.5 million penalty and was barred from the industry for life.
In October 2011, the SEC sanctioned two electronic stock exchanges and a broker-dealer owned by Direct Edge Holdings LLC for violations arising out of weak controls that resulted in millions of dollars in trading losses and a systems outage.
In October 2011, the SEC charged Pipeline Trading Systems LLC and two of its top executives with failing to disclose to customers of Pipeline's "dark pool" trading platform that the vast majority of orders were filled by a trading operation affiliated with Pipeline.
In October 2011, the SEC charged Citigroup with misleading investors about a $1 billion CDO by exercising significant influence over the selection of assets included in the CDO portfolio, and then taking a proprietary short position against those mortgage-related assets from which it would profit if the assets declined in value. Citigroup agreed to settle the SEC's charges by paying a total of $285 million. The district court's rejection of the proposed settlement is on appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
In October 2011, the SEC charged former bank executives of California-based United Commercial Bank with concealing from investors large losses on several loans made by the bank and that appraisals for some of the loans had been reduced dramatically or that collateral securing the loans was insufficient or worthless.
In October 2011, the SEC charged former McKinsey & Company Global Head Rajat Gupta with insider trading for illegally tipping Raj Rajaratnam with insider information about the quarterly earnings of both Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble, as well as an impending $5 billion investment in Goldman by Berkshire Hathaway at the height of the financial crisis.
In October 2011, the SEC obtained an asset freeze against a Boston-area money manager and his investment advisory firm for misleading investors in a supposed quantitative hedge fund and diverting portions of investor money into his personal bank account. The SEC alleged that Andrey C. Hicks and Locust Offshore Management LLC made false representations to create an aura of legitimacy when soliciting individuals to invest in a purported billion dollar hedge fund that Hicks controlled called Locust Offshore Fund Ltd.
In October 2011, the SEC filed an emergency action to halt a Ponzi scheme that promised investors rich returns on water-filtering natural stone pavers, but bilked them of approximately $26 million over a four-year period.
In November 2011, the SEC charged Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) with violating the securities laws in a fee arrangement that repeatedly charged a fund and its investors for advisory services they were not actually receiving from a third party. The SEC's investigation found that MSIM represented to investors and the fund's board of directors that it contracted a Malaysian-based sub-adviser to provide advice, research, and assistance to MSIM for the benefit of the fund, which invests in equity securities of Malaysian companies. The sub-adviser did not provide these purported advisory services, yet the fund's board annually renewed the contract based on MSIM's representations for more than a decade at a total cost of $1.8 million to investors.
In November and December 2011, the SEC filed several enforcement actions charging three advisory firms and six individuals as part of the Asset Management Unit's Aberrational Performance Inquiry to combat investment adviser fraud by identifying abnormal investment performance. The misconduct involved improper use of fund assets, fraudulent valuations, and misrepresenting fund returns. Under this initiative, proprietary risk analytics were used to evaluate hedge fund returns, identifying funds whose performance was inconsistent with its investment strategy or other benchmarks.
In December 2011, the SEC filed the final two actions in a series of cases in a wide-ranging complex bid-rigging scheme involving several financial firms related to the reinvestment of proceeds from the sale of municipal securities. In these two actions, the SEC charged Wachovia Bank N.A. with fraudulently rigging the bids of at least 58 municipal bond reinvestment transactions in 25 states and Puerto Rico and General Electric Funding Capital Market Services with fraudulently rigging the bids of at least 328 municipal bond transactions in 44 states and Puerto Rico. The bid-rigging involved the temporary investment of proceeds of tax-exempt municipal securities. Wachovia paid $46 million and GE Funding paid $25 million in penalties, disgorgement, and interest to settle the SEC's charges. These firms also paid more than $167 million to settle actions with other federal and state authorities for this misconduct.
In December 2011, the SEC charged Magyar Telekom PLC, Hungary's largest telecommunications provider, and three of its former top executives with bribing government and political party officials in Macedonia and Montenegro to win business and shut out competition in the telecommunications industry. Magyar Telekom agreed to settle the SEC's charges by paying more than $31.2 million in disgorgement and pre-judgment interest. Magyar Telekom also agreed to pay more than $59 million in criminal penalties to the U.S. Department of Justice.
In December 2011, the SEC charged six former top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including two former CEOs, with misleading investors about the extent of each company's holdings of subprime and other higher-risk mortgages.
In December 2011, the SEC charged seven former Siemens executives with anti-bribery violations for their actions in the decade-long bribery scheme to retain a $1 billion government contract to produce national identity cards for Argentine citizens.
2012
In January 2012, the SEC charged two multibillion-dollar hedge fund advisory firms, Diamondback Capital and Level Global, as well as seven fund managers and analysts, involved in a $78 million insider trading scheme based on nonpublic material information about Dell's quarterly earnings and other similar inside information about Nvidia Corporation.
In January 2012, the SEC charged a trader in Latvia for conducting a widespread online account intrusion scheme in which he manipulated the prices of more than 100 NYSE and Nasdaq securities and caused more than $2 million in harm to customers of U.S. brokerage firms. According to the SEC's complaint, Igors Nagaicevs broke into online brokerage accounts of customers at large U.S. broker-dealers and drove stock prices up or down by making unauthorized purchases or sales in the hijacked accounts. This occurred on more than 150 occasions over the course of 14 months.
In January 2012, the SEC charged an Illinois-based investment adviser with offering to sell fictitious securities on LinkedIn and issued two alerts in an agency-wide effort to highlight the risks investors and advisory firms face when using social media. Anthony Fields offered more than $500 billion in fictitious securities through various social media websites. For example, he used LinkedIn discussions to promote fictitious "bank guarantees" and "medium-term notes".
Also in January 2012, the SEC charged Texas-based financial services firm Life Partners Holdings and three of its senior executives for their involvement in a fraudulent disclosure and accounting scheme involving life settlements. The SEC alleges that Life Partners chairman and CEO, the president and general counsel, and the chief financial officer misled shareholders by failing to disclose a significant risk to Life Partners' business: the company was systematically and materially underestimating the life expectancy estimates it used to price transactions.
In February 2012, the SEC charged four former investment bankers and traders at Credit Suisse Group for engaging in a complex scheme to fraudulently overstate the prices of $3.0 billion in subprime bonds during the height of the financial crisis.
In two cases arising out of the SEC's Cross-Border Initiative, the SEC brought actions against China-based companies and their executives for making misleading statements to investors in U.S. stock markets. On February 22, 2012, the SEC charged two senior executives of Puda Coal, Inc. with defrauding investors into believing they were investing in a Chinese coal business when in fact they were investing in an empty shell company. The SEC also charged China-based China Sky One Medical Inc. and its chief executive with fraud for recording fake sales of a weight loss product to inflate revenues in the company's financial statements by millions of dollars.
In February 2012, the SEC charged Douglas Whitman, a hedge fund manager, and his California-based firm, Whitman Capital, for their involvement in the insider trading ring connected to Raj Rajaratnam and Galleon Management. According to the SEC's complaint, Whitman and his firm traded on material, nonpublic information obtained from Rajaratnam's associate, Roomy Khan, who was Whitman's friend and neighbor.
In February 2012, the SEC charged John Kinnucan and his Portland, Oregon-based expert consulting firm, Broadband Research Corporation, with insider trading. Kinnucan and Broadband claimed to be in the business of providing clients with legitimate research about technology companies, but instead they typically tipped clients with material, nonpublic information that Kinnucan obtained from prohibited sources inside the companies. Kinnucan was sentenced to 51 months in prison after conviction for securities fraud.
In February 2012, the SEC charged London-based medical device company Smith & Nephew PLC with violating the FCPA when its U.S. and German subsidiaries bribed public doctors in Greece for more than a decade to win business. The SEC's complaint against Smith & Nephew PLC alleged that its subsidiaries used a distributor to create a slush fund to make illicit payments to public doctors employed by government hospitals or agencies in Greece. Smith & Nephew PLC and its U.S. subsidiary Smith & Nephew Inc. paid more than $22 million to settle the SEC's and DOJ's actions.
In March 2012, the SEC charged the three senior-most executives at Thornburg Mortgage, formerly one of the nation's largest mortgage companies, with hiding the company's deteriorating financial condition at the onset of the financial crisis.
In March 2012, the SEC charged two managers with making false statements and pocketing undisclosed fees and commissions in connection with two private investment funds established solely to acquire the shares of Facebook and other Silicon Valley firms. Also charged was SharesPost, an online service that matches buyers and sellers of pre-IPO (initial public offering) stock, for engaging in securities transactions without registering as a broker-dealer.
In March 2012, the SEC charged Indiana-based medical device company Biomet with violating the FCPA when its subsidiaries and agents bribed public doctors in Argentina, Brazil and China for nearly a decade to win business.
In March 2012, the SEC announced that a federal judge ordered the former CEO of Brookstreet Securities Corp., Stanley C. Brooks, to pay a maximum $10 million penalty related to the fraud action that the SEC filed against Brooks for systematically selling risky mortgage-backed securities during the financial crisis to customers with conservative investment goals.
In April 2012, the SEC charged H&R Block subsidiary Option One Mortgage Corporation with misleading investors in several offerings of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities by failing to disclose that its financial condition was significantly deteriorating and that it could not meet its repurchase obligations on its own. Option One paid $28.2 million to settle the SEC's charges.
In April 2012, the SEC charged Chicago-based optionsXpress, an online brokerage and clearing agency specializing in options and futures, as well as its former chief financial officer and a customer involved in an abusive naked short selling scheme. optionsXpress failed to satisfy its close-out obligations under Regulation SHO by repeatedly engaging in a series of sham "reset" transactions designed to give the illusion that the firm had purchased securities of like kind and quantity.
In April 2012, the SEC charged AutoChina International Limited and 11 investors, including a senior executive and director at the China-based firm, with conducting a market manipulation scheme to create the false appearance of a liquid and active market for AutoChina's stock. Starting in October 2010, the defendants and others deposited more than $60 million into U.S.-based brokerage accounts and engaged in hundreds of fraudulent trades over the next three months through these accounts and accounts with a Hong Kong-based broker-dealer. The fraudulent trades included matched orders, where one account sold shares to another account at the same time and for the same price, and wash trades, which resulted in no change of beneficial ownership of the shares.
In April 2012, the SEC charged Garth R. Peterson, a former executive at Morgan Stanley's real estate investment and fund advisory business, with violating the FCPA as well as securities laws for investment advisers by secretly acquiring millions of dollars of real estate investments for himself and an influential Chinese official who in turn steered business to Morgan Stanley's funds.
Also in April 2012, the SEC filed an emergency action to halt an ongoing Ponzi scheme that targeted members of the Persian-Jewish community in Los Angeles. The SEC alleged that for the past two years, Shervin Neman raised more than $7.5 million from investors by claiming to be a hedge fund manager. Neman raised funds from at least 11 investors in the fraudulent securities offering, and more than 99% of the money Neman raised was used either to pay existing investors or fund his lavish lifestyle.
In April 2012, the SEC charged Egan-Jones Ratings Company (EJR) and Sean Egan, its owner and president, for material misrepresentations and omissions in the company's July 2008 application to register as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) for issuers of asset-backed securities (ABS) and government securities.
Also in April 2012, the SEC also charged that Goldman, Sachs & Co. lacked adequate policies and procedures to address the risk that during weekly "huddles," the firm's analysts could share material, nonpublic information about upcoming research changes. Huddles were a practice where Goldman's stock research analysts met to provide their best trading ideas to firm traders and later passed them on to a select group of top clients.
In April 2012, the SEC charged Franklin Bank's former CEO and CFO for their involvement in a fraudulent scheme designed to conceal the deterioration of the bank's loan portfolio and inflate its reported earnings during the financial crisis.
In May 2012, the SEC charged UBS Puerto Rico and two executives with making misrepresentations about the liquidity and pricing of 23 proprietary closed-end funds, and concealing that it advantaged its own proprietary trades over those of its customers as it reduced its exposure to these assets.
In May 2012, the SEC suspended trading in the securities of 379 dormant companies before they could be hijacked by fraudsters and used to harm investors through reverse mergers or pump-and-dump schemes. The trading suspension marks the most companies ever suspended in a single day by the Commission as it ramps up its crackdown against fraud involving microcap shell companies that are dormant and delinquent in their public disclosures.
In May 2012, the SEC charged a former executive at Yahoo! and a former mutual fund manager at a subsidiary of Ameriprise Financial with insider trading on confidential information about a search engine partnership between Yahoo and Microsoft Corporation. The SEC alleged that Robert W. Kwok, who was Yahoo's senior director of business management, breached his duty to the company when he told Reema D. Shah in July 2009 that a deal between Yahoo and Microsoft would be announced soon.
In May 2012, the SEC brought an enforcement action against Shanghai-based Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu CPA Ltd. for its refusal to provide the agency with audit work papers related to a China-based company under investigation for potential accounting fraud against U.S. investors.
In May 2012, the SEC charged former Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick, former City Treasurer Jeffrey W. Beasley, and MayfieldGentry Realty Advisors LLC, the investment adviser to Detroit's public pension funds, for a pay-to-play scheme involving the secret exchange of lavish gifts in exchange for influence over the funds' investment process. The SEC alleged that Kilpatrick and Beasley, who were trustees to the pension funds, solicited and received $125,000 worth of private jet travel and other perks paid for by MayfieldGentry, whose CEO, Chauncey Mayfield, was recommending to the trustees that the pension funds invest approximately $117 million in a real estate investment trust controlled by the firm.
In June 2012, the SEC filed fraud charges against New York-based hedge fund adviser Philip A. Falcone and his advisory firm, Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, for illicit conduct that included misappropriation of client assets, market manipulation, and betraying clients. The SEC alleged that Falcone fraudulently obtained $113.2 million from a hedge fund that he advised and misappropriated the proceeds to pay his personal taxes; secretly favored certain customers at the expense of others by granting favorable redemption and liquidity rights to certain strategically important investors in exchange for those investors' consent to restrict redemption rights of other fund investors; and that Harbinger engaged in illegal trades in connection with the purchase of common stock in three public offerings after having sold the same securities short during a restricted period.
In June 2012, the SEC charged investment management company OppenheimerFunds and its sales and distribution arm with making misleading statements about two of its mutual funds struggling in the midst of the financial crisis, including the fund's practice of assuming substantial leverage in using derivative instruments. Oppenheimer paid more than $35 million to settle the SEC's charges.
In June 2012, the SEC charged 14 sales agents who misled investors and illegally sold securities for a Long Island-based investment firm at the center of a $415 million Ponzi scheme. The SEC alleged that the sales agents, including four sets of siblings, falsely promised investor returns as high as 12 to 14% in several weeks when they sold investments offered by Agape World, Inc. They also misled investors to believe that only 1% of their principal was at risk. The Agape securities they peddled were actually non-existent, and investors were merely lured into a Ponzi scheme where earlier investors were paid with new investor funds.
Also in June 2012, the SEC took emergency action to halt a real estate-based Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 600 investors nationwide of $100 million. The SEC's action charged Wayne L. Palmer and his firm, National Note of Utah, LC, with fraud in a scheme in which he raised money from investors by promising to use the proceeds to buy mortgage notes and other real estate assets. Contrary to Palmer's claims, National Note used most of the money it took in from new investors to pay earlier investors, making it a classic Ponzi scheme.
In July 2012, the SEC charged five physicians with insider trading in the securities of an East Lansing, Michigan-based holding company for a medical professional liability insurer. The SEC alleged that Apparao Mukkamala learned confidential information from board meetings and other communications about the anticipated acquisition of American Physicians Capital Inc. by another insurance company. Mukkamala shared the nonpublic information with three physicians and friends as well as his brother-in-law.
In July 2012, the SEC took emergency action to freeze the assets of traders using accounts in Hong Kong and Singapore to hold more than $13 million in illegal profits by trading in advance of a public announcement that China-based CNOOC Ltd. was acquiring Canada-based Nexen Inc. The SEC's complaint alleged that Hong Kong-based firm Well Advantage Ltd. and other unknown traders stockpiled shares of Nexen stock based on confidential information about the deal in the days leading up to the announcement. The SEC took the emergency action within days of the public announcement of the deal and less than 24 hours after Well Advantage placed an order to liquidate its entire position in Nexen.
In July 2012, the SEC charged the chairman and CEO of a Santa Ana, California-based computer storage device company with insider trading in a secondary offering of his stock shares with knowledge of confidential information that a major customer's demand for one of its most profitable products was turning out to be less than expected.
Also in July 2012, the SEC charged the U.S. investment banking subsidiary of Japan-based Mizuho Financial Group and three former employees with misleading investors in Delphinus CDO-2007-1 by using "dummy assets" to inflate the deal's credit ratings. Delphinus defaulted in 2008 and eventually was liquidated in 2010. Mizuho paid $127.5 million to settle the SEC's charges, and the others charged also settled the SEC's actions against them.
In August 2012, the SEC charged James V. Mazzo, who was the Chairman and CEO of Advanced Medical Optics, and the source of DeCinces's illegal tips about the impending transaction. DeCinces and Mazzo are close friends and neighbors. The SEC also charged two others who traded on inside information that DeCinces tipped to them—DeCinces' former Baltimore Orioles teammate Eddie Murray and another friend David L. Parker, who is a businessman living in Utah. The SEC alleged that Murray made approximately $235,314 in illegal profits.
In August 2012, the SEC charged Pfizer with violating the FCPA when its subsidiaries bribed doctors and other health care professionals employed by foreign governments in order to win business. The SEC also separately charged another pharmaceutical company that Pfizer acquired a few years ago—Wyeth LLC—with FCPA violations. Pfizer and Wyeth agreed to separate settlements in which they paid more than $45 million combined to settle their respective charges. In a parallel action, Pfizer H.C.P. Corporation paid a $15 million penalty to resolve the DOJ's FCPA investigation.
Also in August 2012, the SEC charged Bruce Cole, former CEO and chairman of Mamtek U.S., for executing a scheme to defraud investors and making material misrepresentations and omissions in connection with the July 2010 offer and sale of $39 million of appropriations credit bonds backed by the City of Moberly, Missouri.
In August 2012, the SEC filed fraud charges against a former college football coach who teamed with an Ohio man to conduct an $80 million Ponzi scheme that included other college coaches and former players among its victims. The SEC alleged that Jim Donnan, a College Football Hall of Fame inductee who guided teams at Marshall University and the University of Georgia and later became a television commentator, together with his business partner told investors that GLC was in the wholesale liquidation business and earned substantial profits by buying leftover merchandise from major retailers and reselling those discontinued, damaged, or returned products to discount retailers. However, only about $12 million of the $80 million raised from nearly 100 investors was actually used to purchase leftover merchandise; the remaining funds were used to pay fake returns to earlier investors or stolen for other uses by Donnan and Crabtree.
Also in August 2012, the SEC filed fraud charges and an emergency asset freeze to halt a $600 million Ponzi scheme on the verge of collapse. The SEC alleged that online marketer Paul Burks of Lexington, North Carolina and his company Rex Venture Group had raised money from more than one million Internet customers nationwide and overseas through the website ZeekRewards.com, which they began in January 2011. Customers were allegedly offered several ways to earn money through the ZeekRewards program, two of which involved purchasing securities in the form of investment contracts. However, the website fraudulently conveyed the false impression that the company was extremely profitable when, in fact, the payouts to investors bore no relation to the company's net profits. Most of ZeekRewards' total revenues and the "net profits" paid to investors have been funds received from new investors in classic Ponzi scheme fashion.
In August 2012, the SEC charged Wells Fargo for improperly selling asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) structured with high-risk mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) to municipalities, non-profit institutions, and other customers, almost exclusively upon the basis of their credit ratings. According to the SEC's order, registered representatives in Wells Fargo's Institutional Brokerage and Sales Division made recommendations to institutional customers to purchase ABCP but did not review the private placement memoranda (PPMs) for the investments and the extensive risk disclosures in those documents. Instead, they relied almost exclusively on the credit ratings of these products despite various warnings against such over-reliance in the PPM and elsewhere. Wells Fargo also failed to establish any procedures to ensure that its personnel adequately reviewed and understood the nature and risks of these commercial paper programs.
In September 2012, the SEC charged the former CEO, President and Chief Credit Officer of Lincoln, Nebraska-based TierOne Bank for participating in a scheme to understate millions of dollars in losses and mislead investors and federal regulators at the height of the financial crisis.
In September 2012, the SEC settled charges with investment advisory firm ICP Asset Management and its founder and president Thomas C. Priore regarding allegations of fraud related to misrepresentations that caused the CDOs they managed to overpay for securities. In addition, the SEC alleged that Priore and ICP improperly obtained fees and undisclosed profits at the expense of the CDOs and their investors. ICP and Priore paid more than $23 million to settle the case. Priore also agreed to be barred from working in the securities industry for five years.
In September 2012, the SEC charged Goldman, Sachs & Co. and one of its former investment bankers, Neil Morrison, with violations of various MSRB rules for undisclosed "in-kind" non-cash campaign contributions to then-Massachusetts State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill while he was a candidate for governor.
In September 2012, the SEC brought first-of-its-kind charges against the New York Stock Exchange for compliance failures that gave certain customers an improper head start on trading information. According to the SEC's order, NYSE violated Regulation NMS, which prohibits the practice of improperly sending market data to proprietary customers before broadly distributing trade and quote data to the public, over an extended period of time beginning in 2008 by sending data through two of its proprietary feeds before sending data to the consolidated feeds. NYSE's inadequate compliance efforts failed to monitor the speed of its proprietary feeds compared to its data transmission to the consolidated feeds. NYSE and its parent company, NYSE Euronext, agreed to a $5 million penalty and significant undertakings to settle the SEC's charges. It marks the first-ever SEC financial penalty against an exchange.
That same month, the SEC charged a New York-based brokerage firm, Hold Brothers On-Line Investment Service, and three of its executives for allowing traders outside the U.S. to access the markets and conduct manipulative trading through accounts the firm controlled. The Soverseas traders were accessing the markets through the firm's customer accounts and repeatedly manipulating publicly traded stocks through an illegal practice known as "layering" or "spoofing". In layering, the trader places orders with no intention of having them executed but rather to trick others into buying or selling a stock at an artificial price driven by the orders that the trader later cancels.
Also in September 2012, the SEC charged three former brokers at JP Turner, an Atlanta-based brokerage firm, for "churning" the accounts of customers with conservative investment objectives, resulting in losses to investors while the brokers collected significant fees. The SEC charged Michael Bresner, the head supervisor at JP Turner, as well as the firm's president, William Mello, and the firm itself for compliance failures.
In October 2012, the SEC charged a New Jersey hedge fund, Yorkville Advisors LLC, developers of the Standby Equity Distribution Agreement and two of its directors with fraud, by scheming to overvalue assets. The case was dismissed in October 2018.
In November 2012, the SEC charged JP Morgan Securities LLC and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) with misleading investors in RMBS offerings associated with the financial crisis. JP Morgan was charged with misstating information about the delinquency status of the mortgage loans underlying an RMBS offering, for which JP Morgan received more than $2.7 million in fees while investors lost at least $37 million on undisclosed delinquent loans. JP Morgan was also charged with Bear Stearns' failure to disclose its practice of obtaining and keeping cash settlements from loan originators on problem loans. JP Morgan agreed to pay $296.9 million to settle the charges. Credit Suisse was charged with failing to accurately disclose its practice of retaining cash settlements from claims again mortgage loan originators, and with making misstatements in SEC filings about when it would repurchase mortgage loans from trusts if borrowers missed the first payment. Credit Suisse agreed to pay $120 million to settle the charges. The SEC filed these cases in its capacity as a member of the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group of President Obama's Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.
In November 2012, the SEC charged Stamford, Connecticut-based hedge fund advisory firm CR Intrinsic Investors LLC, its former portfolio manager, and a medical consultant for an expert network firm for their roles in an insider trading scheme involving the clinical trial of a drug to treat Alzheimer's. The scheme allegedly generated $276 million in illicit gains, making it the largest insider trading case ever charged by the SEC.
In November 2012, the SEC charged Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company for failing to disclose the potential negative impact of a "cap" it had placed on a complex investment product. The cap, which potentially affected $2.5 billion worth of variable annuities, would cause the guaranteed minimum income benefit (GMIB) value to stop earning interest when reached.
Also in November 2012, the SEC brought charges against BP p.l.c for misleading investors about the amount of oil that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion on April 20, 2010. The SEC alleges that BP repeatedly and significantly understated the amount of oil leaking from the rig by making fraudulent public statements and disclosures estimating that 5,000 barrels of oil a day flowed from the leak despite internal data showing that the flow rate could be as high as 146,000 barrels a day. Even after a government task force determined the flow rate estimate was actually more than 10 times higher than BP's estimate, BP did not correct or update the misrepresentations and omissions it made in SEC filings for investors. BP agreed to settle the SEC's charges by paying a $525 million penalty, the third-largest penalty in agency history.
The following is an incomplete list of financial regulatory authorities by country.
List
A-B
Afghanistan - Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB)
Albania - Albanian Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA)
Algeria - Commission d'Organisation et de Surveillance des Opérations de Bourse (COSOB)
Andorra - Andorran Financial Authority (AFA)
Anguilla - Anguilla Financial Services Commission
Antigua & Barbuda - Financial Services Regulatory Commission
Argentina - Comisión Nacional de Valores [es] (CNV)
Armenia - Central Bank of Armenia (CBA)
Australia:
Reserve Bank of Australia
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA)
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)
Australian Takeovers Panel
Foreign Investments Review Board (FIRB)
Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC)
Austria:
Financial Market Authority (FMA, Finanzmarktaufsichtsbehörde in German)
Oesterreichische Nationalbank
Austrian Takeover Commission (Übernahmekommission in German)
Azerbaijan:
Financial Market Supervisory Authority of Azerbaijan ;
Bahamas:
Central Bank of The Bahamas
Securities Commission of the Bahamas
Bahrain - Central Bank of Bahrain
Bangladesh:
Bangladesh Bank
Securities and Exchange Commission (Bangladesh)
Barbados:
Barbados Financial Services Commission
Central Bank of Barbados
Financial Intelligence Unit (Barbados)
Belarus:
National Bank of the Republic of Belarus
Belgium:
Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA - Autorité des services et marchés financiers/Authoriteit voor Financiële Diensten en Markten)
National Bank of Belgium (NBB - Banque Nationale de Belgique/Nationale Bank van België)
Belize - International Financial Services Commission
Bermuda - Bermuda Monetary Authority
Bhutan - Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan (RMA)
Bolivia - Autoridad de Supervisión del Sistema Financiero (ASFI)
Bosnia and Herzegovina:
Republika Srpska Securities Commission for Republika Srpska
Securities Commission of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina ("Komisija za vrijednosne papire Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine")
Botswana:
Non-Bank Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority (NBFIRA)
Bank of Botswana (BOB)
Brazil:
Central Bank of Brazil (BACEN, Banco Central do Brasil in Portuguese)
Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil (CVM, Comissão de Valores Mobiliários in Portuguese)
Superintendency of Private Insurance (SUSEP, Superintendência de Seguros Privados in Portuguese)
British Virgin Islands - British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission
Brunei - Brunei International Financial Center of the Ministry of Finance
Bulgaria - Financial Supervision Commission (Bulgaria) (FSC)
C-D
Cambodia
National Bank of Cambodia (NBC)
Non-bank Financial Services Authority
Canada:
Bank of Canada
Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation
Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI)
Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC)
Financial Consumer Agency of Canada
Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA)
Alberta Securities Commission
Autorité des marchés financiers - Québec
British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC)
Ontario Securities Commission (OSC)
Financial and Consumer Services Commission, New Brunswick (FCNB)
Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC)
Mutual Fund Dealers Association (MFDA)
Financial Services Commission of Ontario
Financial Institutions Commission - Province of British Columbia
Cayman Islands - Cayman Islands Monetary Authority
Chile - Superintendencia de Valores y Seguros
China, People's Republic of:
China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC)
China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC)
People's Bank of China (PBOC)
Colombia:
Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia
National Directorate of Taxes and Customs (DIAN)
Congo, the Democratic Republic of - Central Bank of Congo
Congo, The Republic of - Agence de Régulation des Transferts de Fonds (ARTF)
Costa Rica:
Superintendencia General de Valores
Superintendencia General de Seguros (Costa Rica)
Côte d'Ivoire - Banque Centrale des Etats de l'Afrique de l'Ouest
Croatia:
Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency
Croatian National Bank
Cyprus:
Central Bank of Cyprus
Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CYSEC)
Cyprus Insurance Companies Control Service (ICCS)
Czech Republic - Czech National Bank
Denmark - Financial Supervisory Authority (Denmark), (Finanstilsynet in Danish)
Dominica - Financial Service Unit of the Commonwealth of Dominica
Dominican Republic:
Banco Central de la Republica Dominica
Superintendencia de Bancos de la Republica Dominicana
Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores de la Republica Dominicana
E-I
Ecuador - Superintendencia de Bancos
Egypt - Financial Regulatory Authority
El Salvador
Superintendencia del Sistema Financiero
Instituto De Garantía De Depósitos (IGD)
European Union:
European Central Bank (ECB)
European Banking Authority (EBA)
European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)
European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA)
European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB)
Estonia:
Financial Supervisory Authority of Estonia (Finantsinspektsioon in Estonian)
Bank of Estonia (Eesti Pank in Estonian)
Faroe Islands - Insurance Authority of the Faroe Islands (Tryggingareftirlitið in Faroese) (For Insurance, Pension and mortgages all other finance is regulated by Financial Supervisory Authority (Denmark))
Finland - Financial Supervisory Authority, (FIN-FSA Finanssivalvonta in Finnish)
France:
Financial Protection Regulatory Authority (France) (FPRA)
Autorité des marchés financiers (France) (AMF)
Georgia - National Bank of Georgia
Germany - Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin - Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht)
Ghana:
Securities and Exchange Commission (Ghana) (SEC)
Bank of Ghana (BOG)
Gibraltar - Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC)
Greece - Hellenic Capital Market Commission
Grenada - Grenada International Financial Services Authority (GIFSA)
Guatemala - Superintendencia de Bancos (SB)
Guernsey - Guernsey Financial Services Commission
Honduras - National Banks and Securities Commission (Comisión Nacional de Bancos y Seguros in Spanish)
Hong Kong:
Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA)
Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC)
Hong Kong Insurance Authority (IA)
Hong Kong Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority (MPFA)
Hungary - Hungarian National Bank (Hungarian: Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB))
Iceland - Central Bank of Iceland
India:
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) - central bank and primary regulator of banks, payment systems, and financial entities
Banks Board Bureau (BBB)
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)
International Financial Services Centres Authority - Governing body of the International Financial Services Centre In Gujarat International Financial tec-city(GIFT City), India.
Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC)
Banking Codes and Standards Board of India (BCSBI)
Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
Forward Markets Commission (FMC)
Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI)
Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI)
Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA)
All India Financial Institutions
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NBARD)
Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDB)
National Housing Bank (NHB)
Export-Import Bank of India (Ex-Im Bank)
Indonesia:
Financial Services Authority (Indonesia) (Indonesian: Otoritas Jasa Keuangan) (OJK)
Bank Indonesia
Indonesia Deposit Insurance Corporation (Indonesian: Lembaga Penjamin Simpanan) (LPS)
Ireland:
Central Bank of Ireland
Irish Takeover Panel
Iran:
Securities and Exchange Organization of Iran
Central Bank of Iran
Iraq - Iraq Securities Commission (ISC)
Isle of Man - Isle of Man Financial Services Authority
Israel - Israel Securities Authority (ISA)
Italy:
Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB)
Institute for the Supervision of Insurance (ISVAP)
J-L
Jamaica:
Financial Services Commission (Jamaica)
Bank of Jamaica
Japan:
Financial Services Agency (FSA)
Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC)
Jersey - Jersey Financial Services Commission
Jordan - Jordan Securities Commission
Kazakhstan:
Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Regulation and Supervision of Financial Market and Financial Organizations (Агентство Республики Казахстан по регулированию и надзору финансового рынка и финансовых организаций in Kazakh )
Committee for the Control and Supervision of the Financial Market and Financial Organizations of the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Astana Financial Services Authority
Kenya - Capital Markets Authority (Kenya)
Kuwait:
Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) (بنك الكويت المركزي in Arabic)
Capital Markets Authority Kuwait (CMA) (هيئة أسواق المال - دولة الكويت in Arabic)
Korea, South:
Financial Services Commission (FSC)
Financial Supervisory Service (FSS)
Latvia - Financial and Capital Market Commission
Lebanon - Banking Control Commission of Lebanon (BCCL) and Insurance Control Commission (ICC)
Lesotho - Central Bank of Lesotho
Liechtenstein - Financial Market Authority (Liechtenstein) (FMA)
Lithuania - Bank of Lithuania
Luxembourg:
Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF)
Commissariat aux Assurances (CAA)
M-R
Malaysia:
Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM)
Securities Commission Malaysia (SC)
Labuan Financial Services Authority (Labuan FSA)
Malaysian Stock Exchange (Bursa)
Malawi - Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM)
Malta:
Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA)
Central Bank of Malta
Mauritania - Central Bank of Mauritania (BCM)
Mauritius:
Bank of Mauritius (BOM)
Financial Services Commission (FSC)
Mexico:
Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores
Comisión Nacional para la Protección y Defensa de los Usuarios de Servicios Financieros
Moldova - National Commission for Financial Markets
Montenegro - Insurance Supervision Agency
Montserrat - Montserrat Financial Services Commission
Mongolia:
Financial Regulatory Commission of Mongolia
Central Bank of Mongolia
Morocco - Moroccan Capital Market Authority [fr] (AMMC)
Nepal:
Nepal Rastra Bank (Central Bank of Nepal - Regulator and Supervisor of Banks and Financial Institutions)
Beema Samiti (Regulator of Insurance Companies)
Securities Board Nepal (SEBON)
Netherlands:
Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM - Autoriteit Financiële Markten in Dutch)
De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB)
Netherlands Antilles - Bank of the Netherlands Antilles
New Zealand - Financial Markets Authority (New Zealand)
Nigeria:
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
Securities and Exchange Commission (Nigeria)
National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) (Nigeria)
National Pension Commission (PENCOM) (Nigeria)
North Macedonia:
Securities and Exchange Commission of the Republic of North Macedonia (MSEC)
National Bank of North Macedonia
Norway - Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway (Finanstilsynet in Norwegian)
Oman - Capital Market Authority (Oman)
Pakistan
State Bank of Pakistan
Securities and Exchange Commission Pakistan
Panama - Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores
Papua New Guinea - Bank of Papua New Guinea
Peru:
Superintendencia de Banca, Seguros y AFP (SBS)
Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores (SMV)
Philippines:
Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Insurance Commission (Komisyon ng Seguro)
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines)
Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC)
Department of Finance (DOF)
Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE)
Bureau of Treasury
Poland - Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF)
Portugal:
Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM)
Portuguese Insurance Regulator (ASF)
Qatar - Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority (QFCRA)
Romania - Romanian Financial Supervisory Authority
Russia - Central Bank of Russia (CBR)
S-T
Saint Lucia - Financial Sector Supervision Unit
Saint Kitts and Nevis:
Financial Services Regulatory Commission
Nevis Financial Regulatory Services Commission
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines:
Financial Services Authority
Capital Market Association of the Eastern Caribbean (CMAEC)
Samoa - Central Bank of Samoa
San Marino - Central Bank of San Marino (BCSM)
Saudi Arabia:
Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) (مؤسسة النقد العربي السعودي in Arabic)-
Capital Market Authority (Saudi Arabia) (CMA) (هيئة السوق المالية in Arabic)
Serbia - Securities Commission (Serbia)
Seychelles:
Central Bank of Seychelles
Seychelles Financial Services Authority (SFSA)
Singapore - Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)
Slovakia - National Bank of Slovakia
Slovenia - Securities Market Agency (ATVP Agencija za Trg Vrednostnih Papirjev)
South Africa:
South African Reserve Bank
National Credit Regulator
Prudential Authority
Financial Sector Conduct Authority
Spain:
Investment sector regulator - Spanish Securities Market Commission (Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores, CNMV) [MiFID]
Insurance sector regulator (life and general) - Dirección General de Seguros y Fondos de Pensiones (DGSFP)[IMD]
Banking sector regulator - Banco de España (BdE)
Sri Lanka:
Central Bank of Sri Lanka
Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka
Swaziland - Capital Markets Development Unit (Central Bank of Swaziland)
Sweden - Financial Supervisory Authority (Sweden)
Switzerland:
Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority
Swiss National Bank
Swiss Takeover Board
Syria:
Syrian Commission on Financial Markets and Securities
Central Bank of Syria
Syrian Insurance Supervisory Commission
Syrian Invenstment Agency
Export and Production Support and Development Authority
General Commission of Development and Real Estate Investment
Taiwan - Financial Supervisory Commission
Tanzania - Capital Markets and Securities Authority
Thailand:
Bank of Thailand (BOT)
Office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Thailand (Thai SEC)
Office of Insurance Commission (OIC)
Trinidad and Tobago - Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago Securities and Exchange Commission
Tunisia - Conseil du marché financier
Turkey:
Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency of Turkey (BRSA - )
Capital Markets Board of Turkey (CMB)
U-Z
Uganda:
Capital Markets Authority (Uganda) (CMA)
Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda
Ukraine - National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC)
United Arab Emirates:
Mainland (Onshore):
Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE)
Securities and Commodities Authority - (SCA)
Insurance Authority - (IA)
Free Zones:
Abu Dhabi: ADGM (Abu Dhabi Global Market) - Financial Services Regulatory Authority - (FSRA)
Dubai: DIFC (Dubai International Financial Center) - Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA)
United Kingdom:
Bank of England (BoE)
Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA)
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
Panel on Takeovers and Mergers (PANEL)
Financial Policy Committee (FPC)
Financial Reporting Council (FRC)
United States:
Banking Regulators
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) - consumer compliance
Federal Reserve System ("Fed")
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)
National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)
Farm Credit Administration (FCA)
Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) - main umbrella group for US Federal banking authorities
Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) - main umbrella group representing US State and Territorial banking supervisors
Securities Regulators
Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC)
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)
Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC)
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)
Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB)
National Futures Association (NFA)
Other Regulators
Financial Stability Oversight Board (FSOC) - systemic risk
Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) - government sponsored housing finance
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) - anti-money laundering
National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) - insurance
Each US state and territory generally has its own banking, insurance, and securities authorities
Uruguay - Banco Central del Uruguay
Uzbekistan - Center for Coordination and Control over Functioning of Securities Market
Vatican City - Financial Information Authority
Venezuela - Superintendencia Nacional de Valores (SNV)
Vietnam - State Securities Commission (SSC)
Zambia - Securities and Exchange Commission (Zambia)
Zimbabwe - Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
This is a list of official business registers around the world.
There are many types of official business registers, usually maintained for various purposes by a state authority, such as a government agency, or a court of law. In some cases, it may also be devolved to self-governing bodies, either commercial (a chamber of commerce) or professional (a regulatory college); or to a dedicated, highly regulated company (i.e., operator of a stock exchange, a multilateral trading facility, a central securities depository or an alternative trading system).
The following is an incomplete list of official business registers by country.
Types of registers
A business register may include data on entities, as well as on their status for various purposes. Examples of such registers include:
company register — a register of legal entities in the jurisdiction they operate under, for the purpose of establishing, dissolving, acquisition of legal capacity and (in some cases) juridical personality, determination of legal representation, protection, accountability, and control of legal entities.
list of undertakings cleared for access to classified information — register of companies authorized to work on contracts involving dealing with sensitive information documents of a government or an international organisation, usually maintained by a counter-intelligence service.
statistical business register — plays a central part in a system of official economic statistics at a national statistics office.
Another group of business registers is focused on various assets or liabilities of an entity, rather than on entities themselves, these include:
public contract register — a repository that aims at keeping track of all procurements, usually awarded through a tender, concluded by the public institutions, making this information available online, thereby providing a basis for monitoring the way in which public money is spent.
public aid register — an official register of businesses in difficulties which received aid from the state.
ultimate beneficial owner register — an official repository of natural person or persons who ultimately own or control a company, maintained to counteract money laundering and terrorist financing.
land and mortgage register — concerns titles, rights, and liabilities (such as real estate liens or pledges) related to real estate, consisting of premises specified in a cadaster, such as land, buildings, or condominium units,
cadaster — determines the geospatial localization, the extent, and (in some cases) the value of premises, including land parcels, buildings, and condominium units, which together form real estate, subject to rights and liabilities registered in a land and mortgage register,
vehicle register (such as those for motor vehicles, rolling stock, boat or ships, or aircraft) — includes entries containing data on vehicle identification number, vehicle registration plate number, vehicle title, type approval, vehicle inspections, liability insurance, as well as vehicle liens, such as maritime liens, and which sometimes may be connected to a register of pledges or tax liens.
register of pledges — includes entries concerning liabilities (pledges and voluntary specific liens) of a pledgor to a creditor, secured by tying them to a pledgor's collateral, such as a movable, a security, or an intellectual property right.
industrial property register — an official database containing registered trade marks, as well as patented inventions, industrial designs, utility models, or integrated circuits, thus protecting and reserving the rights of the company which developed them or bought rights to them.
plant breeders’ rights register — registers rights to a protected plant variety, developed and registered by a plant breeder.
Some types of business registers combine the features of both groups, these include:
tax register — a register used for the purpose of revenue collection, including taxes, duties such as tariffs or excise, as well as mandatory social insurance and health insurance contributions; such a register includes all taxable entities, as well as their tax liabilities, including tax liens.
public company and securities register — the official repository of publicly listed or unlisted companies whose at least one emission of securities was offered for the purpose of free trading to a number of persons exceeding certain threshold (varying according to jurisdiction), thus placing such a company under specific regulatory obligations, mainly concerning mandatory publication of information on the terms and rights attached to the offered security, as well as information on the company itself and its finances.
list of companies and their securities publicly traded on a stock market — maintained by a stock exchange or an alternative trading system for the purpose of trading and quoting companies’ stocks.
insolvency register — contains information on companies who entered insolvency, bankruptcy, liquidation, administration, receivership, debt restructuring, or have been under futile execution, either of an administrative debt (by a government agency) or of a private debt (by a bailiff), for longer than an amount of time specified by law, as well as on their liabilities.
register or a list of a specified type of regulated entities or activities — contains entries on companies officially authorized to perform a specified type of business, where prior obtaining of a permit, a license, a concession, or registration on such a list or register is a prerequisite required by law. Depending on situation, regulation may apply to an entity type, or to a type of entity's activity.
European Union and the European Economic Area
company registers
European Commission - the Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS) (uses data from national registers operated by the member states) (searchable); List of European Research Infrastructure Consortia (online web list)
European Committee of the Regions - Register of European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation (uses data from national lists operated by the member states) (available unrestricted as a search engine and a GIS/cadaster)
the Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations - Register of European political parties and European political foundations (EU only) (online web lists)
tax registers (European Commission)
VAT Information Exchange System (uses data from national registers operated by the member states) - taxpayers who obtained registration allowing to perform intra-community supply transactions; not mandatory for VAT-exempt entities involved in intra-commumity supply transactions of low worth in the given year, unless they do not perform services by delegating their employees to another EU country (online VAT number check)
System of Exchange of Excise Data (SEED) (uses data from national lists operated by the member states) - (in English) (SEED number check)
Registered Exporter System (REX) (central register with input operated by the member states) (in English) (REX number check)
Economic Operator Identification and Registration System (EORI) (central register with input operated by the member states) – (in English) (EORI number check)
Economic Operator Systems Authorized Economic Operator (central register with input operated by the member states) – Authorized Economic Operator Database (in English) (searchable)
vehicle registers
EU Fleet Register (EU only, uses data from national lists operated by the member states) - registry of maritime commercial vessels used in fisheries within the Common Fisheries Policy (in English) (searchable)
EUCARIS (European Car and Driving License Information System)
Austria
Wiener Zeitung — the official gazette. (languages: German only)
Firmenbuch — the searchable database. (languages: German only)
Financial Market Authority (FMA) — has searchable database for companies that hold FMA-issued licenses. (languages: German only)
Belgium
KBO Public Search — searchable database for public information on every registered active enterprise and establishment in Belgium. (languages: Dutch, French)
Central Balance Sheet Office (National Bank of Belgium) — has the accounts of companies, associations, and foundations active in Belgium. (languages: Dutch, French, German, English)
Crossroads Bank for Enterprises
Enterprise Search — maintained by the Federal Public Service Justice (languages: French only)
Public companies register (STORI) — maintained by the Financial Services and Markets Authority
Bulgaria
Trade Register — electronic register. Companies must be entered into the commercial register that is kept with the relevant district court, where they can be viewed by the public. (languages: Bulgarian only)
D&B Report Guide Bulgaria — information on the different types of companies
Trade Register (Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry)
Croatia
Biznet — provides information and statistics on the Croatian economy, and access to the Register of Business Entities. It is maintained by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce Biznet. (languages: Croatian and English)
D&B Report Guide Croatia — provides information on legal forms and filing requirements.
Croatian Company Directory
Business Register — maintained by the Ministry of Justice. (languages: Croatian only)
Export Directory — maintained by the Chamber of Economy. (languages: Croatian only)
Cyprus
Department of the Registrar of Companies and Official Receiver — responsible for keeping the Register of Companies, Partnerships, Business Names, Trade Marks, Patents and Industrial Designs, as well as for administering properties of insolvent legal and natural persons.
Cyprus-Data.com — searchable database for companies in Cyprus
Czech Republic
Public register and the collection of documents — maintained by the Ministry of Justice. (language: Czech)
Register of economic entities — maintained by the Ministry of Finance
Trade Licensing Register — maintained by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. (Czech version has additional detail.)
Denmark
Central Business Register — the official registry of Danish businesses.
Danish Commerce and Companies Agency (da:Erhvervs- og Selskabsstyrelsen) — former administrator of the Central Business Register, since a reorganization in 2012 a part of the Danish Business Authority (da:Erhvervsstyrelsen).
Financial Supervisory Authority — supervisory agency which administers a database of enterprises under increased supervision.
Estonia
Central Commercial Register (Estonian: Äriregistri teabesüsteem) — an online service based on the central database of Estonian registration departments of the courts.
Database of the Financial Supervision Authority (Finantsinspektsioon) — searchable database of supervised entities. (languages: Estonian, English)
Finland
Finnish Trade Register — official company register for Finnish companies, maintained by the Finnish Patent and Registration Office. (languages: Finnish, English, Swedish)
BIS Search — trade register of 470,000 Finnish companies via the Business Information System of the Finnish Patent and Registration Office.
Åland: Åland Online — companies, organizations and associations
France
Trade and Companies Register (French: Infogreffe) — official register of over 3,200,000 French companies, maintained by the Commercial Court. (languages: French)
Sirene — statistical business register maintained by INSEE. (languages: French only)
Bulletin of Obligatory Legal Announcements — maintained by Journal officiel de la République française. (languages: French only)
Official Bulletin of Civil and Commercial Announcements (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, BODACC) — publishes companies registered in the RCS (registre du commerce et des sociétés). (languages: French only)
Paris: Paris Registry — maintained by the Clerk of the Commercial Court of Paris (Greffe du Tribunal de Commerce de Paris)
Germany
German Commercial Register — judicial register of the federal states. (languages: German only)
Business Register System (German: Unternehmensregister) — centralized statistical business register. (languages: German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish)
Bundesanzeiger — official gazette
Federal Financial Supervisory Authority — listed companies. (languages: German only)
Greece
General Commercial Registry (Γενικό Εμπορικό Μητρώο) (in Greek)
Official gazette – Company search (in Greek)
Athens Chamber of Commerce & Industry (EBEA)
Hungary
Court of Company Registration — provides company information and electronic company registration service. It is maintained by the Ministry of Justice. (languages: Hungarian)
Cégtaláló — searchable database. (languages: Hungarian)
Financial Services Register — maintained by the Hungarian National Bank, also provides supervision of listed companies on Budapest Stock Exchange
Iceland
Company Directory (Directorate of Internal Revenue) — (languages: Icelandic)
Ireland
Companies Registration Office
Company Search — company directory
Registry of Friendly Societies
Italy
Italian Business Register — public register of company details, maintained by the Italian Business Register Office, found in local Chambers of Commerce in Italy. (languages: Italian, English)
Infocamere — company register of the Italian Chambers of Commerce. Information can be obtained from Infocamere and via the European Business Register (EBR). (languages: Italian, mostly)
Infoimprese — (languages: Italian)
Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa listed companies
Latvia
Registry of Enterprises of Latvia. Registry also publish free publicly accessible database of companies of Latvia.
Lursoft — database of all enterprises, public organizations, and foreign company agencies registered within the territory of Latvia, including information of their managers, shareholders fixed capital, and annual accounts. The information is based on original documents of the State Register of Enterprises. (languages: Latvian, mostly)
Liechtenstein
Commercial Register — maintained by the Office of Justice. (languages: German only)
Lithuania
Register of Legal Entities
Luxembourg
Luxembourg Business Registers (in English)
Registre de Commerce et des Sociétés — the official register of companies and associations in Luxembourg. (languages: German, French)
Business permits (in English)
Official Gazette "Mémorial C"(Legilux) (in French)
Supervised entities (Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier)
Malta
Malta Business Registry — registry of companies
The Netherlands
Trade Register — company search, maintained by Kamer van Koophandel. In the Netherlands, registration in the trade register is compulsory for almost every company. (languages: Dutch, English)
Norway
Brønnøysund Register Centre — government body under the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, and consists of several different national EDP registers. (languages: Norwegian, mostly)
List of companies (Agency for Public Management and eGovernment)
Registry of supervised entities (Financial Supervisory Authority)
Poland
Regular company registers
There are two registers of entities which are obligated or allowed to register as entrepreneurs:
Ministry of Development (MR) – Central Registration and Information on Business (CEIDG) – company register for natural persons trading as sole traders or their civil law partnerships (searchable); such companies are prohibited from performing certain activities (e.g. operating a life insurance company), and proper agricultural activity (animal breeding, plant cultivation) of an individual farmer is also excluded from registration in CEIDG; the register does not assign its own registration number, using the NIP (see below) for this purpose instead
Ministry of Justice (MS):
National Court Register (KRS) (in Polish) (searchable)
Further information: List of legal entity types by country § Entities registered in the National Court Register (Krajowy Rejestr Sądowy, KRS)
— register of the majority of juridical persons types, a well as other collective (private) legal entities (there are, however, numerous exceptions, see List of official business registers#Registers of businesses excluded from registration as entrepreneurs); assigns a registration number (numer KRS), mandatory to be exposed on all outbound company documents and letters; some activities (e.g. operating a school) are not available to all entities registered in KRS, but only to those who are juridical persons; members of some professions are not allowed to practise in all of the company types (e.g. an advocate is prohibited from practising the profession in the form of a limited liability company); its constituent parts are:
Register of Entrepreneurs (Rejestr przedsiębiorców) — the company register for entities other than natural persons which hold an obligatory status of entrepreneurs: trade partnerships: either entities with legal capacity but lacking juridical personality (registered partnerships, limited partnerships, limited joint-stock partnerships, professional partnerships), or juridical persons (limited liability companies, joint-stock companies), as well as for other types of entrepreneurs who are juridical persons, as well as any of the juridical persons registered in the Register of Associations, Other Social and Professional Organizations, Foundations and Independent Public Healthcare Institutions (see below) if they intend to perform business activities (when allowed by their bylaws, excluding the stand-alone public healthcare institutions, as they are not allowed to register as an entrepreneur, as well as those of juridical persons or other legal entities who are registered in the KRS exclusively for the purpose of obtaining status of an officially recognized charity - public benefit organization, and would otherwise be excluded from the registration in the KRS - see below)
Register of Associations, Other Social and Professional Organizations, Foundations and Stand-alone Public Healthcare Institutions (Rejestr stowarzyszeń, innych organizacji społecznych i zawodowych, fundacji oraz samodzielnych publicznych zakładów opieki zdrowotnej) — the other part of the KRS, is responsible for the registration of various other types of juridical persons. If any of the registered entities intends to perform business activities (when allowed by its bylaws), it also has to obtain registration in the Register of Entrepreneurs; in addition, juridical persons or any other legal entities (including those otherwise excluded or exempt from the registration in the KRS – see below) also have to register, if they apply for the status of an officially recognized charity (public benefit organization); however, as an exception, registration solely for that purpose neither confers juridical personality to entities lacking one, nor does it create obligation or right to register as an entrepreneur;
Court and Commercial Gazette (Monitor Sądowy i Gospodarczy) – official gazette (in Polish) (searchable);
Financial document viewer (Przeglądarka dokumentów finansowych) (in Polish) - the official free viewer of financial documents that allows to download financial documents of an entity entered in the Register of Entrepreneurs of the National Court Register, in particular financial statements, reports on activities, resolutions on the allocation of profit or coverage of losses. The KRS number of the entity is needed to search.
Registers of businesses excluded from registration as entrepreneurs
Further information: List of legal entity types by country § Entities excluded from registration as entrepreneurs
Registers of some of the types of businesses excluded from registration as entrepreneurs which are available online include the following (the list does not include registries of entities established through a centralized European Union-level procedure, namely the European Research Infrastructure Consortia, the European political parties and the European political foundations):
Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARMiR) – National Register of the Rural Women's Associations (in Polish) (searchable);Register of Producers, Agricultural Holdings and Applications for Payment Entitlements (in Polish) - (non-searchable; however, the bulk of data may be obtained from the Directory of Common Agricultural Policy Beneficiaries - see above);
Polish Waters National Water Management Holding (PGW WP) – IT system for protection against extraordinary hazards (ISOK) – Informatics System for Water Management (SIGW) – water cadaster, which includes the centralized register of water corporations, levee unions (input operated at the local level by the starostas) and the unions of water companies or levee unions (input operated at the local level by the voivodes) (in Polish) (searchable)
Central Office of Geodesy (Land Survey) and Cartography – 'Land and Buildings Records (EGiB) – land and buildings cadaster, which includes the centralized register of common land management corporations (input operated at the local level by the starostas) (in Polish) (searchable)
Polish Hunting Association (PZŁ) – Registers of Hunting Clubs, available on websites of each of the 49 district boards of the Association, located in: Biała Podlaska (in Polish), Białystok (in Polish), Bielsko-Biała (in Polish), Bydgoszcz (in Polish), Chełm (in Polish), Ciechanów (in Polish), Częstochowa (in Polish), Elbląg (in Polish), Gdańsk (in Polish), Gorzów Wlkp. (in Polish), Jelenia Góra (in Polish), Kalisz (in Polish), Katowice (in Polish), Kielce (in Polish), Konin (in Polish), Koszalin (in Polish), Kraków (in Polish), Krosno (in Polish), Legnica (in Polish), Leszno (in Polish), Lublin (in Polish), Łomża (in Polish), Łódź (in Polish), Nowy Sącz (in Polish), Olsztyn (in Polish), Opole (in Polish), Ostrołęka (in Polish), Piła (in Polish), Piotrków Tryb. (in Polish), Płock (in Polish), Poznań (in Polish), Przemyśl (in Polish), Radom (in Polish), Rzeszów (in Polish), Siedlce (in Polish), Sieradz (in Polish), Skierniewice (in Polish), Słupsk (in Polish), Suwałki (in Polish), Szczecin (in Polish), Tarnobrzeg (in Polish), Tarnów (in Polish), Toruń (in Polish), Wałbrzych (in Polish), Warszawa (in Polish), Włocławek (in Polish), Wrocław (in Polish), Zamość (in Polish), Zielona Góra (in Polish)
Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) – Register of (PAN) Research Institutes (in Polish) (searchable)
Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW) – Register of Higher Education Institutions – includes both public and private institutions (in Polish) (searchable)
Ministry of National Education (MEN) – Register of Schools and Educational Institutions (in Polish) – includes also the jednostki systemu oświaty (schools or educational institutions other than higher education institutions) (searchable)
Ministry of Interior and Administration – register of inter-municipal unions, inter-county unions, as well as cross-category unions of municipalities and counties (in Polish), (downloadable lists); Database of Territorial Self-Government Units (in Polish), (downloadable lists in various formats); Register of Churches and Other Confessional Communities (in Polish), (only the list of denominations downloadable; non-searchable is the detailed part of the register, covering ecclesiastical juridical persons or other legal entities);
Ministry of Justice - List of judicial enforcement officers (bailiffs) (in Polish), (searchable), the list is also available as a search engine on the website of their regulatory college, the National Council of Judicial Officers (in Polish),
General Directorate for Environmental Protection (GDOŚ) – Central Register of Forms of Environmental Protection – includes the register of national parks, available as a search engine (in Polish), or a GIS/cadaster (in Polish) (searchable),
Bureau for Forest Management and Geodesy State Enterprise on behalf of the State Forests National Forest Holding - Forest Data Bank - the official forest inventory and the forestry cadaster, also includes data on all territorial units of the State Forests (in English) (searchable),
District Court in Warsaw (SO w Warszawie) – Register of Political Parties (in Polish) (searchable); Register of Pension Funds (in Polish) (searchable only in person; however, the bulk of the data may be obtained from the combined search engine of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority - see below); Register of Investment Funds (in Polish) (searchable only in person; however, the bulk of the data may be obtained from the combined search engine of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority - see below); Register of Family Foundations
Ministry of Foreign Affairs – List of European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation registered in Poland (in Polish) (downloadable list)
Ministry of Infrastructure – info-car.pl website operated under contract with the Ministry by the Polish Security Printing Works – database of voivodeship road traffic centers (in Polish) (searchable)
Notably absent are:
a central register of public cultural institutions. Each of the actual or potential parent entities (a ministry, a central government agency, or a territorial self-government unit) is obligated to maintain its own register of subordinate public cultural institutions, which results in almost 3000 separate official registers of such institutions, operated in various forms and independently of each other, each containing only a few to a dozen entries (if any), available on website of each of the parent entities;
a register of homeowner communities
a register of common land communities
Other general official business registers
Ministry of Justice (MS):
National Register of the Indebted (Krajowy Rejestr Zadłużonych) — insolvency register separate from the KRS, designed to include entries on insolvent debtors: either private natural persons (e.g. child support, maintenance or tax debtors, consumer bankrupts), entrepreneurs, or any other legal entities, regardless whether they are registered in the National Court Register or the Central Registration and Information on Business (in Polish); (searchable)
Register of Pledges (Rejestr Zastawów) – allows to submit an inquiry concerning registered (thus legally binding) pledges and voluntary specific liens put on a collateral, either a movable, such as a vehicle (a road vehicle, a rolling stock vehicle, an aircraft, a boat, or a ship, excluding ships registered by one of the 2 maritime chambers in the Register of Ships, because they are covered by a dedicated instrument called ship mortgage), other types of machines, a controlled weapon, a movable object of cultural property, or on a security, as well as on an intellectual property right; the register is connected to the relevant vehicle, security, or intellectual property right register, in cases, where such exists (in Polish);
Land and Mortgage Register (Elektroniczne Księgi Wieczyste) – contains official and legally binding entries (done by selected sąd rejonowy courts) on real estate rights (including ownership), obligations (such as any pledges or liens), as well as warnings concerning unsettled or ongoing claims, any detected outdated entries (e.g. a dead person or a dissolved entity listed as owner), or any detected discrepancies with the referenced relevant Land and Buildings Records (the cadaster) entry – search by the register number (in Polish) (searchable);
National Criminal Register (Krajowy Rejestr Karny) – contains entries on all entities convicted and sentenced for a felony or crime, or for a fiscal felony or crime, either natural persons (including entrepreneurs), or (in selected types of felony or crime) juridical persons or other collective legal entities (such as trade partnerships) (in English) (access to data on a person or an entity is available on a paid request by the person or the entity concerned; on a paid request by an employer, in cases concerning a job restricted by law to unconvicted persons; on a paid request by a juridical person or other collective legal entity, in cases concerning membership of its governing body, status of its authorized signaotory, or acquisition of its shares, when restricted by law to unconvicted persons; on a free-of-charge-demand by an authorized public institution or authorities of another EU state (or a non-EU state, under an international agreement, or under the principle of reciprocity) );
Central Office of Geodesy (Land Survey) and Cartography – Geoportal (in Polish) – provides access to the:
Land and Buildings Records (EGiB) – the official cadaster of land, buildings, and owner-occupancies,
Geodetic Records of Utilities Networks (GESUT) – the official cadaster of utilities networks,
Ministry of Finance (MF) – Central Register of Beneficial Owners (CRBR) – a register of ultimate beneficial owners (in Polish) (searchable)
National Fiscal Administration (KAS)
Central Register of Entities – National Register of Taxpayers (in Polish) – tax register which assigns the Tax Identification Number (NIP) to all taxable entities, including companies, with the exception of natural persons not registered in the Central Registration and Information on Business, as they are required to use their Personal Identification Number (PESEL) instead of NIP for tax purposes. It is mandatory to include both seller's and buyer's NIP on all invoices (excluding those concerning consumer sales to private natural persons, where only the seller's NIP is required); its validation is available online (NIP validity check) (in Polish);
List of VAT Taxpayers (so-called VAT white list) (in Polish) – list of registered, unregistered and deleted entities and restored to the VAT register (VAT status check by NIP);
List of EU VAT Taxpayers – includes those Polish taxpayers who obtained registration allowing to perform intra-community supply transactions and to use their NIP with the PL- prefix as their EU VAT number; not mandatory for VAT-exempt entities involved in intra-commumity supply transactions worth altogether less than 50000PLN in the given year, unless they do not perform services by delegating their employees to another EU country (EU VAT status check available through the EU-operated VAT Information Exchange System (in Polish);
Tax and Customs Service (SCS) – Electronic Services Portal of the Tax and Customs Service (PUESC) (in Polish) (searchable) – assigns the IDSISC number for customs or excise purposes, and provides access to the:
Central Register of Excise Entities (CRPA) – confirms granting of excise authorization to excise entities, supplies their data to the EU Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) through the System for the Exchange of Excise Data (SEED), and registers their IDSISC number in the SEED PL database (searchable), IDSISC (SEED PL) number validation is also available on the website operated by the EU (in English) (SEED number check)
(EU customs) Registered Exporter System (REX) – registered Polish entities (searchable), REX number validation oś also available on the website operated by the EU (in English) (REX number check)
(EU customs) Economic Operator Identification and Registration System (EORI) (for registration purposes only) – EORI number validation is available on the website operated by the EU (in English) (EORI number check)
(EU customs) Economic Operator Systems Authorized Economic Operator Database (EOS AEO) (for registration purposes only) – Authorized Economic Operator Database is available on the website operated by the EU (in English) (searchable)
Register of Tax Liens – register of tax liens put on a collateral, either a movable, such as a vehicle (a road vehicle, a rolling stock vehicle, an aircraft, a boat, or a ship, excluding ships registered by one of the 2 maritime chambers in the Register of Ships, because they are covered by a dedicated instrument called ship mortgage), other types of machines, a firearm, a movable object of cultural property, or on a security, as well as on an intellectual property right; (searchable by serial or identification number) (in Polish);
Polish Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) – Central Register of Contribution Payers (in English) (non-searchable) – tax register of all entities (including companies) paying compulsory social and health insurance contributions for their employees (or health insurance only, in the case of professions covered by special non-insurance pensions systems funded by the state budget: judges, public prosecutors, professional soldiers and members of other national uniformed services), as well as natural persons obligated to pay social and/or health insurance contributions for themselves (including sole traders, partners of a civil law partnership, registered partnership, limited partnership, limited joint-stock partnership, professional partnership, single-shareholder limited liability company, as well as artists), and people paying voluntary social and/or health insurance contributions; the register does not include individual farmers paying their social and health insurance contributions to the separate Agricultural Social Insurance Fund, as well as members of uniformed services delegated to work an undercover job. It does not assign a dedicated identification number, using the existing numbers (NIP, REGON, PESEL) for identification purposes instead;
Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (KRUS) - Register of Agricultural Social Insurance and Health Insurance Contribution Payers (in Polish) (non-searchable) – tax register of individual farmers for the purposes of collecting compulsory agricultural social insurance and health insurance contributions. Farmers paying the agricultural social insurance for at least 3 years may register as entrepreneurs in CEIDG and engage in additional business activities while retaining the right to remain in the agricultural social insurance system, under the conditions that they continue agricultural production and do not exceed certain limits on income from the additional activity. Farmers may also pay to KRUS health insurance and diminished social insurance contributions (limited to sickness, maternity and accident insurance, but excluding the pension and disability insurance) for seasonal workers employed up to 180 days per year for harvesting fruits, vegetables, herbs, tobacco, hop, or flowers. Any other employees of a farmer fall under the general Social Insurance Institution system.
Central Statistical Office (GUS) – National Official Business Register (in Polish) – statistical business register which assigns the Statistical Identification Number (REGON) to all public and private juridical persons, as well as all other entities, with the exception of natural persons other than entrepreneurs. It is mandatory to expose REGON on all company stamps as well as outbound documents and letters (searchable);
Intellectual property registers
Patent Office of the Republic of Poland (UPRP) – Patent Office Registries e-Search (in Polish) industrial property database which includes trade marks, industrial designs, utility models, and integrated circuits (excluding those of the four types, which have been registered by the European Union Intellectual Property Office), as well as inventions (national patents), and (European Patent Office) European patents, including the EU unitary patents (but without their unitary effect due to Polish opt-out caused by EU's failure to award the Polish language the status in the scheme equal to that of German, English or French, and therefore, such patents are treated in Poland as ordinary EPO patents) (searchable)
Research Centre for Cultivar Testing (COBORU) – The List of Varieties Protected by Plant Breeders' Rights and The List of Varieties Which are the Subject of an Application for the Grant of the Plant Breeders' Rights – Protected by Provisional PBR – national register of plant breeders’ rights, does not include the varieties registered by the Community Plant Variety Office (in English) (downloadable list); List of breeders, breeders’ representatives and licensees (in English) (searchable); (some of these lists may also include individual farmers whose farms have not been registered as companies);
Official vehicle registries
Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland – Central Registry of Vehicles and Drivers
Central Registry of Vehicles – contains data on all registered road vehicles. Vehicle History service (in English) (searchable by entering combination of vehicle registration number, date of first registration of the vehicle, and VIN number)
Office of Rail Transport (UTK) – National Rail Vehicle Registry (in Polish) (non-searchable);
Civil Aviation Authority (ULC) – Register of Civil Aircraft (in English) (non-searchable);
Registries of vessels (registration is permitted in only single of the five registries at a time, depending on the vessel's size, designation, equipment, usage, and ownership; some of the vessels may require an additional registration: by a ship classification society, or for the purposes of obtaining the ENI number, the IMO number, or the MMSI number - see sector specific registers and lists below; ships belonging to the Navy, the Border Guard or the Police are excluded from registration):
Ministry of Infrastructure – Registry of Yachts and Other Vessels up to 24 m in Length (in Polish) (searchable by entering combination of: vessel registration number; vessel identification number such as HIN Hull Identification Number, CIN Craft Identification Number, WIN Watercraft Identification Number, vessels lacking any of them are awarded INI Individual Identification Number at first registration; date of first registration of the vessel) – responsible for the registration of following vessels up to 24 meters in length: all yachts (defined as ships used exclusively for sports and recreation, including jetski, houseboats, and wooden replicas of historical vessels); inland or maritime non-commercial yachts; inland or maritime commercial yachts up to 12 passengers (including yachts used for paid cruises, training cruises, chartered cruises, commercial lending for recreational fishing and angling or for other purposes); other inland commercial and non-commercial fishing or angling vessels;
Inland Navigation Offices: in Bydgoszcz, in Szczecin, and in Wrocław – Administrative Registry of Inland Waterways Vessels (in Polish) (non-searchable) – registry of inland waterways vessels not covered by the Registry of Yachts and Other Vessels up to 24 m in Length;
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MRiRW) – Registry of Fishing Vessels(in Polish) (non-searchable at national level) – registry of Polish maritime commercial vessels used in fisheries within the Common Fisheries Policy (in English) (searchable via the EU Fleet Register operated by the European Commission)
Maritime Chambers: by the District Court in Szczecin and by the District Court in Gdańsk (seated Gdynia) – Registry of Ships (Rejestr okrętowy) (searchable in person on site free of charge, or on a written paid request, access unrestricted) – the primary official registry of all maritime ships used in international traffic and owned by Polish entities or other EU entities (if not registered in an other EU country), including merchant ships, excluding ships covered by the Registry of Yachts and Other Vessels up to 24 m in Length, or the Registry of Fishing Vessels. Contains information on all rights to the ship, as well as on all obligations (ship mortgage, ship liens). May also contain entries (on a voluntary basis) on maritime ships owned by entities other than Polish, which obtained temporary Polish registration, maritime ships under construction on the Polish territory, and maritime ships exempt from obligation to register by the Maritime Chamber (see below);
Maritime Offices: in Szczecin and in Gdynia: Administrative Registry of Maritime Ships (non-searchable) – obligatory registry for maritime ships exempt from registration in the ordinary Registry of Ships (maritime vessels not covered by the Registry of Yachts and Other Vessels up to 24 m in Length or by the Registry of Fishing Vessels, which are not used in international traffic: up to 15 m in length when equipped with mechanical propulsion, or any length when not equipped with mechanical propulsion) – unless owners of such vessel decided to waive exemption and choose to register in the regular Register of Ships;
Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) – Public Aid Data Sharing System (in Polish) (searchable)
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MRiRW) – Directory of Common Agricultural Policy Beneficiaries (in Polish) (searchable)
Public Procurement Office – (UZP) e-Zamówienia (e-Procurement) Platform (in Polish) (searchable)
National Institute of Cultural Heritage - Registry of Cultural Property(in Polish) (partially searchable) - operated by the Voivodeship Offices for Cultural Property Protection, include immovable (monuments, buildings), archeological, and movable (artifacts) cultural property, in the latter two cases excluding movable items included in the national library fonds, the national archival fonds or in an inventory of a registered museum
Ministry of Interior and Administration - Arms Registration System (SRB) (non-searchable) - operated by the Policja and (in regard to private firearms of soldiers in active service) by the Military Gendarmerie; includes all firearms held by private persons, companies and public institutions, as well as their history, excluding the service firearms of the state uniformed services or other state armed formations (but not the municipal ones), issues the European Firearms Pass
Internal Security Agency (ABW) – (civilian) list of entities holding industrial security clearance (in Polish) (downloadable list with levels of awarded clearances, and their applicability to NATO, EU or ESA classified information)
Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) – (military) list of issued industrial security clearances confirming the capability of an entrepreneur to protect classified information (in Polish) (downloadable lists with levels of awarded clearances, separately for national, NATO, EU and ESA classified information)
Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) – list of public stock issues after 1 January 2020 and their issuers (public companies) (in Polish) (searchable); list of public issues of financial instruments (including public stock issues) prior 1 January 2020 and their issuers (public companies, in the case of stocks) (in Polish) (downloadable list);
Research and Academic Computer Network (NASK) State Research Institute - National Domain Register - the Polish country code top-level domain register, member of Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries and Country Code Names Supporting Organization (in English) (searchable)
GS1 Poland Foundation - assigns the GTIN/EAN codes
Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) Group
GPW Main Market (in English) – the regulated market;
NewConnect – an alternative (unregulated) stock exchange (multilateral trading facility), (in English)
Central Securities Depository of Poland (KDPW) – central securities depository registering dematerialized securities and their owners, and the national numbering agency which assigns the Financial Instrument Short Name, Classification of Financial Instruments code, International Securities Identification Number, as well as Legal Entity Identifier. Its subsidiary KDPW_CCP is the national central counterparty clearing house.
Sector-specific registers and lists of regulated activities
Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) – register of securities listed on an exchange or on an alternative trading system; registers of various types of regulated financial entities (list incomplete): banks, co-operative banks, credit unions, pension funds, insurance companies, life insurance companies, mutual insurance companies, investment funds, stock exchanges, alternative trading systems, and commodities exchanges. A combined search engine. (in English)
Polish Bar Council (NRA) – National Register of Barristers (and their offices) (in Polish) (searchable);
National Chamber of Attorneys at Law (KIRP) – List of Attorneys at Law (and their offices) (in Polish) (searchable);
National Council of Notaries (KRN) – List of notarial offices (in English) (searchable), available also through the EU e-Justice Portal (in English) (searchable), as well as the Council of the Notariats of the European Union (in English) (searchable)
Polish Agency for Audit Oversight (PANA) – List of Audit Firms (in Polish) (searchable);
National Chamber of Tax Advisors (KIDP) – Register of Juridical Persons Authorized to Perform Tax Advisory Activities (in Polish) (downloadable list); List of Tax Advisors (and either their offices, in the forms of sole tradeship, registered partnerships, limited partnerships, limited joint-stock partnerships, professional partnerships, or of juridical persons employing them) (in Polish) (downloadable list)
Patent Office of the Republic of Poland (UPRP) – List of Patent Attorneys (and either their offices, in the forms of sole tradeship, registered partnerships, limited partnerships, limited joint-stock partnerships, professional partnerships, or of juridical persons employing them) (in Polish) (searchable)
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration (MSWiA) – Register of Undertakings Licensed to Manufacture and Trade Explosives, Arms, Ammunition, and Devices or Technologies Designated for Police or Military Use (in Polish) (searchable); Register of Undertakings Performing Private Investigator Services (in Polish) (searchable); Register of Undertakings Licensed to Perform Personal and Property Protection Services (in Polish) (non-searchable); Register of Entities Performing Professional Lobbying Activities (in Polish) (downloadable list);
Ministry of Finance (MF) – List of licensed casinos (in Polish) (downloadable list); List of licensed bookmakers and licensed internet gambling entities (in Polish) (downloadable list);
Ministry of National Education (MEN) – Register of Schools and Educational Institutions (in Polish) – public and private schools and educational institutions, excluding higher education (searchable)
Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW) – List of Non-Public Higher Education Institutions (in Polish) – list of licensed non-public universities and colleges (searchable)
Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy (MRPiPS) – National Register of Employment Agencies (in Polish) (searchable); Register of Nurseries and Children's Clubs (in Polish) (searchable); Register of Social Assistance Units (in Polish) – register of public and private entities such as retirement homes, assisted living homes (but not nursing homes, as they are considered healthcare entities) (searchable)
Ministry of Health (MZ)
Register of Entities Performing Medical Activities (RPWDL) (in Polish), consists of:
Register of Health Entities - includes public and private, commercial and non-commercial healthcare entities, registered by the relevant voivode, without caps on the numbers of medical professionals employed or (in case of private entities) specific restrictions on legal form or stakeholder composition of the entity; assigns an identification number (kod resortowy) to the whole entity, with an extension number for each of its organisational units; the catalogue of the covered types includes among others: hospitals, larger clinics (including dental), health spa entities, nursing homes, hospices, medical transport entities, diagnostic medical laboratories (obligated to register also on the List of Diagnostic Medical Laboratories of the National Chamber of Laboratory Diagnosticians (KIDL), as well as stores (dispensaries) employing qualified medical technicians or craftsmen, involved in retail, fitting and repairs of various medical prosthetic devices (such as glasses, dental prostheses, hearing aides, orthopaedic devices);
registers of individual and group professional practices of physicians, dentists, nurses, midwives, and physiotherapists (but excluding pharmacists, as pharmacies are registered in a separate register - see below, and laboratory diagnosticians, as a medical laboratory is in any case a health entity or a part of one - see above), operated by the respective regulatory colleges, with legal entity types limited exclusively to sole proprietorship in the case of individual practices, as well as to two types of trade partnerships (registered partnership or professional partnership) in the case of group practices; services are provided primarily by their owners, while employment of other-than-owner members of the same medical profession is generally prohibited, except for only a few specific situations, such as hiring for professional training, or hiring a temporary substitution during the owner's absence (searchable);
Register of Pharmacies - with the State Pharmaceutical Inspection organs fulfilling the role of registration authority; includes community pharmacies, community dispensaries (scope-limited, allowed exclusively in rural areas lacking otherwise a pharmacy), establishment pharmacies (in prisons or military garrisons), hospital pharmacies, hospital dispensaries other than pharmacies (scope-limited, fulfilling basic dispensary tasks, with more advanced functions outsourced to an external hospital pharmacy), the latter two types required to be also included as a unit of the parent entity in the Register of Heath Entities (in Polish) (searchable);
Register of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers (in Polish) (searchable)
National Health Fund (NFZ) – Central List of Healthcare Providers (CWŚ) (in Polish) – a public contract list of public and private healthcare providers operating under a contract with the NFZ within the general health insurance system (searchable)
State Sanitary Inspection - Register of Establishments Producing or Marketing Food Subject to the Official Control of the State Sanitary Inspection (non-searchable) - includes farmers cultivating plants, wholesalers, retailers and other undertakings involved in production, processing or marketing of food intended for human consumption, other than production, processing or marketing of animal-derived food already supervised by the Veterinary Inspection), as well as all gastronomy establishments, and producers or recyclers of materials designated for contact with food intended for human consumption; Register of Cosmetic Product Producers (non-searchable); List of designated yellow fever vaccination centers (in Polish) (downloadable list)
State Pharmaceutical Inspection (PIF) – Register of Manufacturers and Importers of Medicinal Products (in Polish) (searchable); National Register of Manufacturers, Importers and Distributors of Active Substances (in Polish) (searchable);
Office for Registration of Medicinal Products, Medical Devices and Biocidal Products (URPLWMiPB) – Register of Medicinal Products and the Register of Marketing Aurhorization Holders – register of all medicines with market authorization in Poland; including those authorized by the European Medicines Agency (in Polish); Record of manufacturers of active substances used in the manufacture of veterinary medicinal products with anabolic, anti-infectious, anti-parasitic, anti-inflammatory, hormonal or psychotropic properties (in Polish) (non-searchable);
Polish Medicines Verification Organisation Foundation (KOWAL) - national operator of the European Medicines Verification System (non-searchable)
National Chamber of Laboratory Diagnosticians (KIDL) – List of Diagnostic Medical Laboratories – list of healthcare entities operating a clinical laboratory (in Polish) (searchable)
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MRiRW) – Register of entities producing or bottling wine products (in Polish) (downloadable list); Register of entities producing or processing ethyl alcohol (in Polish) (downloadable list); Register of entities producing tobacco products (in Polish) (downloadable list); Register of entities producing or bottling liquor drinks (in Polish) (downloadable list); (some of these lists also include individual farmers whose farms have not been registered as companies);
Veterinary Inspection (IW) – Lists and registers of supervised establishments, including: production, processing and marketing of meat, eggs, fish, milk, and dairy, production and marketing of animal feed, list of veterinary pharmaceutical wholesalers (some of these lists also include individual farmers whose farms have not been registered as companies) (in English) (downloadable lists);
Polish National Veterinary Chamber (KILW) - List of Veterinary Care Establishments (in Polish) (searchable)
State Plant Health and Seed Inspection Service (PIORiN) – various registers of undertakings performing activities related to plant health, plant protection products and equipment used to apply them, seed production, as well as integrated plant production (some of these lists also include individual farmers whose farms have not been registered as companies) (in Polish) (partially available as downloadable lists);
National Support Centre for Agriculture (KOWR) (some of these lists also include individual farmers whose farms have not been registered as companies) – Register of biocomponent producers (in Polish) (downloadable list); Register of entities importing biocomponents (in Polish) (downloadable list); Register of farmers producing biofuels for their own use (in Polish) (downloadable list); Register of agricultural biogas producers (in Polish) (downloadable list); Register of first purchasers of cow milk (in Polish) (downloadable list);
Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARMiR) – Register of Producers, Agricultural Holdings and Applications for Payment Entitlements (in Polish) – system operated for the purposes of state-funded, EU-funded or co-funded payment mechanisms in agriculture and fisheries; its constituent Register of Producers includes agricultural producers, animal holders, beneficiaries of fisheries programmes, organizations of producers, entities operating a rendering plant, and potential beneficiaries, as well as their farmę agricultural holdings (non-searchable); (some of these lists also include individual farmers whose farms have not been registered as companies);
Ministry of Sport and Tourism (MSiT) – Central List of Hotel Establishments – list of officially rated establishments providing legally specified services, including room service, bed-making and cleaning of sanitary facilities, at least on a daily basis, classified as: hotels, motels, boarding houses (all are rated category * to *****), trail shelters (rated "compliant"), inns, youth hostels, school youth hostels (all rated category I to III), as well as camping sites (rated category * to ****) and tent camp sites (rated "compliant"); it does not include certain other unrated and unclassified accommodation facilities (prohibited from using any of the abovementioned protected designations of type or category in their facility or company name), registered on a communal list only, such as hostels, holiday centres/dwellings, holiday youth centres, training-recreational centres, creative arts centres, complexes of tourist cottages, rooms for guests in private houses, private lodgings, rooms in spa healthcare entities, or agritourism facilities operated by farmers(in Polish) (searchable); List of Polish Sports Unions (in Polish) (list)
Insurance Guarantee Fund (UFG) – Central Records of Tour Operators and Entrepreneurs Facilitating Linked Travel Arrangements (in Polish) (searchable); Database of Compulsory Vehicle Liability Insurance (in Polish) (insurance check by registration number)
Office of Electronic Communications (UKE) – Register of Postal Operators (in Polish) (searchable); Register of Telecommunications Undertakings (in Polish) (searchable); Register of Maritime and Inland Ship Radio Station Permits with assigned ship callsigns, MMSI and ATIS numbers (in Polish) (downloadable list); registers of various other permits, including radiocommunication, radio and TV broadcasting permits (concerning exclusively technical aspects, while the issues such as awarding radio and TV broadcasting licenses, assessment of proposed format or evaluation of already broadcast content, are handled by the National Broadcasting Council (see below)
Energy Regulatory Office (URE) – registries of various types of energy undertakings (list incomplete): holders of concessions for trade of liquid fuels, holders of concessions for trade of fuels other than liquid; electric energy distributors, operators of electric energy transmission systems; natural gas distributors, operators of natural gas transmission systems, natural gas storage facilities, natural gas liquefaction facilities, liquid natural gas regasification facilities. (in Polish) (downloadable lists)
Polish Centre for Accreditation - list of accredited organisations (includes: testing, medical and calibration laboratories; management systems, persons and product certification bodies, inspection bodies etc.) (in English)
Civil Aviation Authority (ULC) – List of Licensed Air Carriers, List of Holders of Air Operator Certificate (in English) (downloadable lists); List of holders of permits to provide ground handling services to third parties (in English) (downloadable list); List of Holders of Airport Handling Agent Certificate (in English) (downloadable list); List of Holders of Permits for Airport Management (in Polish) (downloadable list); Register of Civil Aerodromes, List of Officially Listed Civil Airfields (in Polish) (downloadable lists);
Polish Register of Shipping – ship classification society recognized at national, EU (both maritime and inland shipping), and IMO levels, member of International Association of Classification Societies; it brokers assignment of the IMO number (in English) (earchable)
Inland Navigation Offices (in Bydgoszcz, Szczecin and Warsaw) - Register of Ships Capable of Navigating on Inland European Waters – assigns the ENI number to vessels requiring classification by an EU-recognised inland ship classification society for navigation in EU inland waterways, upon their registration either in the Register of Inland Waterways Vessels or in the Register of Yachts and Other Vessels up to 24 m in Length (non-searchable);
Office of Rail Transport (UTK) – List of licensed rail carriers (in Polish) (downloadable list);
Inspection of Road Transport (ITD) – Polish Registry of Road Transport Undertakings (in English) (searchable)
State Geological Institute-State Research Institute/State Geological Service (PIG-PIB/PSG) – System of management and protection of mineral resources in Poland – MIDAS (in Polish) – register of deposits, mining areas and mining countries as well as related concessions, synonymous with a mining cadaster (searchable)
National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) – List of public broadcasters (in English); List of licensed broadcasters, registered internet TV broadcasters, cable TV network and satellite TV platform operators (in English)
Portugal
Citizen Portal – Company search (in Portuguese)
Ministry of Justice – Entity Search
Romania
Ministry of Public Finance – Business search (in Romanian)
Ministry of Justice – The National Trade Register Office (ONRC) (registration required) (in Romanian)
Financial Supervisory Authority (in Romanian)
Bucharest Stock Exchange – Companies directory
Slovakia
Companies Register of the Slovak Republic — searchable directory. (languages: Slovak, English)
Slovenia
Slovenian Business Register (ePRS) — maintained by the Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Public Legal Records and Related Services (AJPES). ePRS includes companies (partnerships and corporations), sole proprietors, legal entities governed by private law, societies, natural persons performing registered or regulated activities, subsidiaries and other divisions of business entities and main offices of foreign business entities. (languages: interface in Slovene, English, German, Italian; information in Slovene, English)
Firmica.si — provides company formation services in Slovenia; not an official registry
List of taxable legal entities (Financial Administration) — (languages: Slovene)
Central Securities Clearing Corporation
List of public companies (Securities Market Agency)
Spain
Central Mercantile Registry (Spanish: Registro Mercantil Central, RMC) — subscription service providing legal Information of companies, statistics, and company names. (languages: English, French, German, Spanish).
Association of Spanish Property & Commercial Registers — subscription service
National Securities Market Commission (Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores), search by entity — (languages: Spanish)
Sweden
Companies Registration Office (Swedish: Bolagsverket) — (languages: Swedish, some English)
Financial Supervisory Authority:
Listed company search (Börsinformation)
Company register
Afghanistan
Minister of Commerce and Industries – Central Business Registry
Albania
Albania
National Business Center (Qendra Kombetare e Biznesit)
Algeria
The National Center of The Trade Register (Centre National du Registre du Commerce (CNRC)) (in French) (registration required) closed access
Andorra
Oficina de Marques
Angola
Ministry of Justice and Human Rights – Central Register of Business Names (Ficheiro Central de Denominações Sociais) (not searchable) (in Portuguese)
Ministry of Finance – Registry of State Suppliers (registration required) closed access (in Portuguese)
Antigua and Barbuda
Financial Services Regulatory Commission (not searchable)
Argentina
Ministry of Justice and Human Rights (in Spanish)
Official Gazette (Click on "Sociedades") (in Spanish)
Federal Administration of Public Revenue – tax identification number (CUIT) check (in Spanish)
National Securities Commission – Issuers
National Procurement Office – Providers (in Spanish)
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship – Directory of Importers/Exporters (in Spanish)
Armenia
Ministry of Justice – State Register of the Legal Entities
Tax Service – Taxpayers
Central Bank of Armenia – Listed Companies (in Armenian)
Australia
Australian Securities & Investments Commission – Search ASIC Registers
Australian Securities & Investments Commission – Datasets
Australian Business Register – Australian Business Number Lookup
Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations – Search Corporations
Azerbaijan
Ministry of Taxes – State Register of Business Entities (in Azerbaijani)
Ministry of Taxes – Businesses engaged in production (in Azerbaijani)
Bahamas
Registrar General's Department
Bangladesh
Office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms
Bahrain
Ministry of Industry & Commerce
Bahrain Chamber of Commerce & Industry – Members Search
Central Bank of Bahrain – CBB Register
Barbados
Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office – Registrants
Belarus
Belarus
Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs — Ministry of Justice (In Russian)
Belize
International Business Companies Registry of Belize
Benin
Ministry of Industry, Trade, Small and Medium Enterprises – Business Registry (GUFE) (in French)
Bhutan
Office of the Registrar of Companies, Corporate Regulatory Authority, MoENR (not searchable)
Bolivia
Registry of Commerce (Fundempresa) (in Spanish)
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Brčko District:
Registers of Business Entities
Registry of Securities – Issuers
Republika Srpska:
Registers of Business Entities
Central Registry of Securities – Issuers
Botswana
Companies and Intellectual Property Authority
Brazil
BM&F Bovespa – Listed Companies
Ministry of Finance – Federal Revenue – Legal entity tax identification number (CNPJ) search (in Portuguese)
State registries
Department of Business Registration and Integration (DREI) – Map of commercial registries (juntas comerciais) (in Portuguese)
State/District Searchable Registry Ref.
Acre No Commercial Registry of Acre (in Portuguese)
Alagoas Yes Commercial Registry of Alagoas (registration required) (in Portuguese)
Amapá Yes Commercial Registry of Amapá (registration required) (in Portuguese)
Amazonas No Commercial Registry of Amazonas (registration required) (in Portuguese)
Bahia Yes Commercial Registry of Bahia (in Portuguese)
Ceará No Commercial Registry of Ceará (in Portuguese)
Distrito Federal Yes Commercial Registry of Distrito Federal (registration required) (in Portuguese)
Espírito Santo Yes Commercial Registry of Espírito Santo (in Portuguese)
Goiás No Commercial Registry of Goiás (in Portuguese)
Maranhão No Commercial Registry of Maranhão (in Portuguese)
Mato Grosso Yes Commercial Registry of Mato Grosso (in Portuguese)
Mato Grosso do Sul No Commercial Registry of Mato Grosso do Sul (in Portuguese)
Minas Gerais Yes Commercial Registry of Minas Gerais (registration required) (in Portuguese)
Pará Yes Commercial Registry of Pará (in Portuguese)
Paraíba No Commercial Registry of Paraíba (in Portuguese)
Paraná Yes Commercial Registry of Paraná (in Portuguese)
Pernambuco Yes Commercial Registry of Pernambuco (in Portuguese)
Piauí No Commercial Registry of Piauí (registration required) (in Portuguese)
Rio de Janeiro No Commercial Registry of Rio de Janeiro (in Portuguese)
Rio Grande do Norte No Commercial Registry of Rio Grande do Norte (in Portuguese)
Rio Grande do Sul Yes Commercial Registry of Rio Grande do Sul (registration required) (in Portuguese)
Rondônia Yes Commercial Registry of Rondônia (in Portuguese)
Roraima Yes Commercial Registry of Roraima (in Portuguese)
Santa Catarina Yes Commercial Registry of Santa Catarina (registration required) (in Portuguese)
São Paulo Yes Commercial Registry of São Paulo (in Portuguese)
Sergipe Yes Commercial Registry of Sergipe (in Portuguese)
Tocantins No Commercial Registry of Tocantins (in Portuguese)
Brunei
Brunei Attorney General's Chamber
Burkina Faso
House of Enterprises (Maison de l'Entreprise) – Company search (in French)
Burundi
Investment Promotion Authority (not searchable)
Cambodia
Ministry of Commerce – Business Registration
Cameroon
Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Crafts (CCIMA) – Company Directory (in French)
Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Crafts (CCIMA) – Database of Industrial Enterprises (in French)
Ministry of Economy, Planning, and Regional Development – Business Directory (Annuaire des entreprises)
National Institute of Statistics – List of companies (in French)
Canada
Corporations Canada – Search for a Federal Corporation
Canada's Business Registries
Provincial and territorial registries
Province/Territory Freely searchable Register Ref.
Alberta Yes Service Alberta (licensed businesses only)
British Columbia No British Columbia Corporate Registry (subscription required) closed access
Manitoba No Manitoba Companies Office (subscription required) closed access
New Brunswick No Corporate Affairs Registry Database
Newfoundland and Labrador Yes Companies and Deeds Online
Northwest Territories Yes Department of Justice – Corporate Registry
Nova Scotia Yes Registry of Joint Stock Companies
Nunavut Yes Department of Economic Development and Transportation
Nunavut No Department of Justice – Corporate Registries
Nunavut Yes Inuit Firm Registry
Ontario No Integrated Business Services Application (subscription required) closed access
Prince Edward Island Yes PEI Business / Corporate Registry
Quebec Yes Registraire des entreprises Quebec (in French)
Saskatchewan No Saskatchewan Corporate Registry (subscription required) closed access
Yukon No Department of Community Services – Corporate Affairs
Yukon Yes Yukon Chamber of Commerce – Business Directory
Cape Verde
Official Gazette (subscription required) closed access (in Portuguese)
Central African Republic
Ministry of Commerce and Industry (in French)
Ministry for the Promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises (in French)
Chad
Chad
Business Formalities Center of National Agency for Investments and Exports of Chad.
Chile
Registry of Commerce of Santiago (in Spanish)
Official gazette (in Spanish)
Securities and Insurance Supervisor (in Spanish)
Ministry of Finance – Directory of Providers (in Spanish)
China, People's Republic of
State Administration for Market Regulation (in Chinese)
Credit China (in Chinese)
Ministry of Commerce – Corporate Credit Rating System (in Chinese)
State Administration of Taxation – Corporate credit rating inquiry (in Chinese)
Provincial, sub-provincial and municipal registries
Anhui Province – Anhui Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Hefei – Hefei Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Beijing – Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Chongqing – Chongqing Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Chongqing – Chongqing Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Fujian Province – Fujian Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Fujian Province – Fujian Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Fuzhou – Fuzhou Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Xiamen – Xiamen Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Gansu – Gansu Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Guangdong – Guangdong Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Guangzhou – Guangzhou Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Guangzhou – Guangzhou Commercial Registration Information (in Chinese)
Shenzhen – Market Supervision Administration of Shenzhen Municipality (in Chinese)
Shenzhen – Shenzhen Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Guangxi – Guangxi Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Guizhou – Guizhou Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Guizhou Province – Guizhou Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Guiyang – Guiyang Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Hainan – Hainan Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Hebei – Hebei Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Heilongjiang – Heilongjiang Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Heilongjiang Province – Heilongjiang Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Harbin – Harbin Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Henan – Henan Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Hubei – Hubei Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Wuhan – Wuhan Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Hunan – Hunan Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Hunan Province – Hunan Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Inner Mongolia – Inner Mongolia Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Inner Mongolia – Inner Mongolia Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Jiangsu -– Jiangsu Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Wuxi – Wuxi Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Jiangxi – Jiangxi Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Jilin – Jilin Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Liaoning – Liaoning Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Liaoning Province – Liaoning Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Dalian – Dalian Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Dandong – Dandong Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Shenyang – Shenyang Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region – Ningxia Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Qinghai – Qinghai Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Shaanxi – Shaanxi Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Shaanxi Province – Shaanxi enterprise credit information system (in Chinese)
Xi'an – Xi'an Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Shandong – Shandong Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Dongying – Dongying Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Qingdao – Qingdao Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Weihai – Weihai Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Shanghai – Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Shanxi – Shanxi Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Sichuan – Sichuan Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Sichuan Province – Sichuan Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Chengdu – Chengdu Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Tianjin – Tianjin City Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Binhai – Binhai company search (in Chinese)
Tibet Autonomous Region – Tibet Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region – Xinjiang Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Yunnan – Yunnan Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Kunming – Kunming Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Zhejiang – Zhejiang Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Zhejiang Province – Zhejiang Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Hangzhou – Hangzhou Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese)
Hangzhou – Hangzhou Enterprise Credit Information System (in Chinese)
Special Administrative Territories
Hong Kong
Hong Kong Integrated Companies Registry Information System (ICRIS) – Companies Register
Inland Revenue Department – Business Registration Number Enquiry
Securities and Futures Commission – Public Register of Licensed Persons and Registered Institutions
Macau
Government Printing Bureau
Directorate of Justice Affairs Services (not searchable)
China, Republic of (Taiwan)
Ministry of Economic Affairs
Company Registration Enquiry (in Chinese)
Business registration lists (in Chinese)
Business registration lists (by municipality) (in Chinese)
List of Taiwanese companies in mainland China (in Chinese)
List of Taiwanese companies doing business outside of Taiwan (in Chinese)
List of non-Taiwanese companies registered in Taiwan (in Chinese)
Taiwan Stock Exchange – Market Observation Post System
Colombia
Unified Commercial and Social Registry (RUES) (in Spanish)
Superintendency of Corporations
Business Check (in Spanish)
SIREM Company Search (in Spanish)
Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia – Comprehensive Stock Market Information System (SIMEV) (in Spanish)
Congo, Democratic Republic of the
Ministry of Justice and Human Rights – Business Registry (Guichet unique) (in French)
Congo, Republic of the
National Center for Statistics and Economic Studies (in French) – "Base de données"
Official gazette (in French)
Cook Islands
Financial Supervisory Commission – Registrar's Office (not searchable)
Costa Rica
National Registry (registration required) (in Spanish)
General Directorate Of Taxation (DGT) – Company check (in Spanish)
Government Procurement System – Provider search (in Spanish)
Côte d'Ivoire
Center for Investment Promotion – Company search (in French)
Cuba
National Office of Statistics – Registries (in Spanish)
Danish realms
Faroe Islands: Company Registration Authority
Greenland: Greenland Business Register — (language: Danish)
Djibouti
Office of Industrial Property and Commerce (ODPIC) – Official Bulletin (in French)
Dominica
Companies and Intellectual Property Office – Name search
Dominican Republic
Generate Directorate of Internal Revenue (DGII) – Tax-paying companies search (in Spanish)
Generate Directorate of Internal Revenue (DGII) – Companies without operations (in Spanish)
National Office of Industrial Property (ONAPI) – Trade name search (in Spanish)
General Directorate of Public Procurement – Provider search (in Spanish)
Santo Domingo – Santo Domingo Chamber of Commerce and Production (in Spanish)
Dutch Caribbean
Dutch Caribbean:
Aruba: Aruba Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Bonaire: Bonaire Commercial Register
Curaçao: Curaçao Chamber of Commerce & Industry
Caribbean Netherlands
Saba: Sint Eustatius and Saba Commercial Register
Sint Eustatius: Sint Eustatius and Saba Commercial Register
Sint Maarten: St. Maarten Chamber of Commerce & Industry (not searchable)
Ecuador
Superintendency of Companies (in Spanish)
Internal Revenue Service (SRI) – Company check (in Spanish)
National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) – Business Directory (in Spanish)
National Secretariat of Policy Management – Directory of Social Organizations (in Spanish)
Official Public Procurement System – Provider search (in Spanish)
Egypt
Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade – Egyptian International Trade Point
General Authority for Free Zones and Investment
El Salvador
National Center of Registries – List of registered businesses (in Spanish)
Official Gazette search (in Spanish)
Salvadoran Institute of Social Security – Solvent companies (in Spanish)
Public Procurement Unit (UNAC) – List of providers (in Spanish)
Eritrea
Ministry of Information – Official journal (Haddas Ertra) (in Tigrinya)
Ethiopia
Ministry of Trade
Ministry of Tourism
Fiji
Fiji Government – Companies and Business Registration (registration required)
Gabon
Investment Promotion Agency (Centre de Développement des Entreprises) (not searchable) (in French)
Gambia
iCommerce Registry (registration required)
Georgia
Georgia
D&B Report Guide Georgia — summary of legal forms and filing requirements. (languages: Georgian only)
Public Registry — (languages: Georgian only)
Ghana
Registrar General's Department
Public Procurement Authority – Registered Suppliers and Contractors
Grenada
Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property (not searchable)
Guatemala
Mercantile Registry (subscription required) closed access (in Spanish)
State Procurement System – Provider search (in Spanish)
Guinea
Investment Promotion Agency (in French)
Guyana
Ministry of Legal Affairs – Deeds Registry (not searchable)
The Official Gazette of Guyana
Georgetown – Georgetown Chamber of Commerce & Industry – Directory of Members
Haiti
Ministry of Commerce and Industry – Electronic Commerce Registry (in French)
Hong Kong
Business Registration Office (of the Inland Revenue Department)
Companies Registry
Honduras
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (in Spanish)
Executive Directorate of Income – company tax identification code (RTN) check (in Spanish)
State Office Procurement (ONCAE) – Provider search (in Spanish)
India
Ministry of Corporate Affairs – Find Company/LLP
Indonesia
Ministry of Industry – Industrial Company Directory (in Indonesian)
Ministry of Trade – Corporate Directory
Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN) (in Indonesian)
Indonesia Charter bus – Transportation
Iran
Iranian Judiciary System -Properties and documents registration administration [fa] under Iranian trade law [fa](SSAA) Legal Entities National ID Portal (in Persian) Official Journal (RRK) (in Persian)
Official Journal (Dastour) (in Persian)
Tehran – Tehran Chamber of Commerce and Industries and Mines – Trade Directory (in Persian)
Iraq
Ministry of Trade – Iraq Registrar of Companies
Baghdad – Chamber of Commerce – Companies Search (in Arabic)
Erbil – Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Companies List
Israel
Justice Ministry – Israeli Corporations Authority
Justice Ministry – Israeli Corporations Authority (in Hebrew) closed access – Additional details available in company extract
Israel Securities Authority – List of Public Companies
Ministry of Construction – Contractors Registrar
Jamaica
Office of the Registrar of Companies
National Contracts Commission – Registered Contractors
Japan
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry – Company Search (registration required) (in Japanese)
Jordan
Companies Control Department (in Arabic)
Ministry of Industry and Trade – Trade Names
Securities Depository Center – Public Shareholding Companies
Kazakhstan
Ministry of Justice – Database of legal entities
State Revenue Committee – Legal entities
Business Licenses
Kenya
State Law Office – Registrar General (not searchable)
National Construction Authority – Registered Contractors
Kiribati
Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Cooperatives (not searchable)
Kosovo
Ministry of Trade and Industry – Business Registration Agency
Kuwait
Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Company Search (in Arabic)
Kuwait Stock Exchange – Listed Companies
Kyrgyzstan
Ministry of Justice – Register of Legal Entities (in Russian)
Laos
Ministry of Industry and Commerce – Registered Enterprises
Lebanon
Investment Development Authority of Lebanon
Lesotho
Ministry of Trade, Industry, Cooperatives and Marketing
Liberia
Liberia Business Registry
Libya
Libyan Commercial Registry. (in Arabic) Available only for Libyan residents after registration.
Madagascar
Economic Development Board of Madagascar – List of companies
General Directorate of Taxes (DGI) – Taxable entity search (registration required) (in French)
Malawi
Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs – Registrar General (not searchable)
Malaysia
Companies Commission of Malaysia – Company search (subscription required) closed access
Labuan – Labuan Financial Services Authority (registration required)
Maldives
Ministry of Economic Development
Mali
Investment Promotion Agency (in French)
Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands Maritime & Corporate Administrators
Mauritania
Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture (Click on "Répertoires des entreprises") (in French)
Mauritius
Ministry of Finance and Economic Development – Corporate and Business Registration Department
Mexico
Secretariat of Economy
National Business Information Registry (SIEM) (in Spanish)
Company name search (in Spanish)
Integrated System of Registry Management (SIGER) – list of all state and municipal commercial registries (in Spanish)
Mexican Institute of Industrial Property – Trade name search (in Spanish)
Registry of Suppliers and Contractors (RUPC) (in Spanish)
ProMéxico – Directory of Exporters (in Spanish)
State registries
State/District Searchable Registry Ref.
Aguascalientes No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Aguascalientes (in Spanish)
Baja California No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Baja California (in Spanish)
Baja California Sur No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Baja California Sur (in Spanish)
Campeche No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Campeche (in Spanish)
Chiapas No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Chiapas (in Spanish)
Chihuahua Yes Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Chihuahua (subscription required) closed access (in Spanish)
Coahuila Yes Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Coahuila (subscription required) closed access (in Spanish)
Colima No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Colima (in Spanish)
Durango No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Durango(in Spanish)
Guanajuato Yes Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Guanajuato (subscription required) closed access (in Spanish)
Guerrero No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Guerrero (in Spanish)
Hidalgo No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Hidalgo (in Spanish)
Jalisco Yes Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Jalisco (registration required) (in Spanish)
Mexico City No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Mexico City (in Spanish)
Mexico State No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Mexico State (in Spanish)
Michoacán No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Michoacán (in Spanish)
Morelos No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Morelos (in Spanish)
Nayarit No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Nayarit (in Spanish)
Nuevo León No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Nuevo León (in Spanish)
Oaxaca No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Oaxaca (in Spanish)
Puebla No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Puebla (in Spanish)
Querétaro Yes Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Querétaro (registration required) (in Spanish)
Quintana Roo No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Quintana Roo (in Spanish)
San Luis Potosí No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of San Luis Potosí (in Spanish)
Sinaloa No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Sinaloa (in Spanish)
Sonora No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Sonora (in Spanish)
Tabasco No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Tabasco (in Spanish)
Tamaulipas No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Tamaulipas (in Spanish)
Tlaxcala No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Tlaxcala (in Spanish)
Veracruz No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Veracruz (in Spanish)
Yucatán No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Yucatán (in Spanish)
Zacatecas No Public Registry of Property and Commerce of Zacatecas (in Spanish)
Micronesia, Federated States of
Registrar of Companies – Listing of FSM Corporations
Moldova
Moldova
Licensing Chamber
Ministry of Justice
State Registration Chamber (in Romanian)
State Register of non-profit Organizations (in Romanian)
State Tax Service
Taxable entity search (in Romanian) – search by Unique State Identification Number (IDNO)
List of taxable entities (in Romanian)
Monaco
Registry of Commerce and Industry (in French)
Montenegro
Montenegro
Central Registry of Business Entities
Montenegro Stock Exchange – Company search
Mongolia
General Authority for State Registration
Morocco
Central Trade Registry (OMPIC) (subscription required) closed access (in French)
Central Trade Registry (OMPIC) (in French)
Financial Markets Authority (CDVM) – Listed Companies
Casablanca – Register of Commerce (in French)
Fès – Register of Commerce (in French)
Marrakech – Register of Commerce (in French)
Meknès – Register of Commerce (in Arabic)
Oujda – Register of Commerce (in Arabic)
Rabat – Register of Commerce (in French)
Salé – Register of Commerce (in French)
Tangier – Register of Commerce (in French)
Mozambique
Bulletin of the Republic (in Portuguese)
Myanmar
Directorate of Investment and Company Administration
Namibia
Business and Intellectual Property Authority
Nauru
Registrar of Corporations
Nepal
Office of Company Registrar
New Zealand
Companies Office – Search for companies, company directors or shareholders
Nicaragua
Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade (in Spanish)
General Revenue Service (DGI) – Business search (in Spanish)
General Directorate of State Procurement – Provider search (in Spanish)
Niger
National Institute of Statistics – Directory of Companies (in French)
Nigeria
Corporate Affairs Commission
Bureau of Public Procurement – Registered Contractors
Niue
Companies Office of Niue
North Macedonia
Central Registry (in Macedonian)
Securities and Exchange Commission – Registry of joint stock companies
Oman
Ministry of Commerce and Industry – Search Company Listings
Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Trade Directory
Pakistan
Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan – Company Name Search
Palau
Office of the Attorney General – Registrar of Corporations (not searchable)
Palestine
Ministry of National Economy – Companies Registry
Panama
Public Registry of Panama (registration required) (in Spanish)
Panadata (in Spanish)
Papua New Guinea
Investment Promotion Authority – Entity Search
Paraguay
Ministry of Finance – Taxable entity search (in Spanish)
Undersecretary of State Taxation (SET) – company tax identification number (RUC) check (in Spanish)
National Directorate of Public Procurement – Provider search (in Spanish)
Peru
National Superintendency of Public Registries (SUNARP) (in Spanish)
National Superintendency of Customs and Tax Administration (SUNAT) (in Spanish)
National Superintendency for Banks, Insurance Companies and Pension Fund Administrators (SBS) (in Spanish)
National Superintendency for the Securities Market (SMV) - Supervised companies search (in Spanish)
Supervisory Agency for State Contracts (OSCE) – Provider search (in Spanish)
Philippines
Philippine Business Hub
Department of Trade and Industry – Business Name Registration System (BNRS)
Securities and Exchange Commission – Electronic Simplified Processing of Application for Registration of Company (eSPARC)
Cooperative Development Authority - Cooperative Registration Information System (CoopRIS)
Qatar
Ministry of Business and Trade – Companies Control Department (Hukoomi) (registration required)
Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Business Directory
Qatar Financial Centre Authority – Public Register
Russia
Russian Federation
Federal Tax Service – Unified State Register of Legal Entities (in Russian)
National Classifier of Enterprises and Organizations (in Russian)
Rwanda
Office of the Registrar General (ORG)
Rwanda Revenue Authority – VAT Registered Taxpayers
San Marino
San Marino
Trade Register
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Financial Services Regulatory Commission – Registrar of Companies (registration required)
Nevis Financial Regulatory Services Commission
Saint Lucia
Registry of Companies and Intellectual Property (ROCIP)
Registry of International Business Companies and International Trusts (Pinnacle)
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Commerce and Intellectual Property Office (subscription required) closed access
Samoa
Samoa Business Registry
São Tomé and Príncipe
Ministry of Justice – Company Registry
Saudi Arabia
Ministry of Commerce and Industry (in Arabic)
Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority – License Search (in Arabic)
Riyadh – Riyadh Chamber of Commerce & Industry (in Arabic)
Jeddah – Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry – Business Directory
Senegal
Business Creation Support Bureau
Serbia
Serbia
Serbian Business Registers Agency — runs three registers. (languages: Serbian)
Business Register — business entities and entrepreneurs
Register of Pledges over Movable Property and Rights
Register of Financial Leasing
Central Securities Depository and Clearing House — includes ownership structure of companies
Public Company Register — maintained by the Securities Commission. (languages: Serbian)
Lists of Providers of Financial Services (National Bank of Serbia)
Seychelles
Seychelles Business Register (onshore companies only)
Seychelles Financial Services Authority (not searchable)
Sierra Leone
Office of the Administrator and Registrar General
Singapore
Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority – Entity search (subscription required) closed access
Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore – GST Registered Business Search
Monetary Authority of Singapore – Financial Institutions Directory
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands Business Registry
South Africa
Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC)
South Korea
Start-Biz Online (in Korean)
Small and Medium Business Administration (in Korean)
Supreme Court – Registry (in Korean)
Financial Supervisory Service – Repository of Korea's Corporate Filings
South Sudan
Ministry of Justice – Business Registry (not searchable)
Sri Lanka
Department of Registrar of Companies
Sudan
Ministry of Justice – Commercial Registrations Department (in Arabic)
Suriname
Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Swaziland
Switzerland
Switzerland — Swiss company registers are organized at cantonal level. (There are currently around 45 cantonal commercial registers in Switzerland.)
Central Business Names Index (Zefix) — maintained by the Federal Commercial Registry Office. Contains information of corporate bodies (corporations, corporations with unlimited partners, limited liability companies, co-operatives, non-profit associations and foundations) and public-law corporations registered in the Commercial Register. (languages: English, French, German, Italian)
Swiss Commercial Gazette (SHAB) — official gazette that publishes new entries and changes in the commercial register.
Moneyhouse (moneyhouse) — maintained by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). Contains information of ultimate beneficial owners, corporate bodies and public-law corporations registered in the Commercial Register. (languages: English, French, German, Italian)
Tajikistan
Tax Committee – Register of Legal Entities (in Russian)
Tanzania
Business Registrations and Licensing Agency (BRELA)
Thailand
Ministry of Commerce – Department of Business Development
Timor-Leste
Institute for Business Support – Enterprises
Service Registry and Company Verification (not yet searchable) (in Portuguese)
Official Gazette (in Portuguese)
Tonga
Business Registries Office
Togo
Business Start-up Center (in French)
Tunisia
Registry of Commerce (in French)
Agency for the Promotion of Industry and Innovation – Directory of industrial enterprises
Turkey
Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey – Turkish Trade Registry Gazette
Central Registration System (MERSİS) (registration required) (in Turkish)
Turkish Standards Institution – Company Search
Adana – Adana Chamber of Commerce – Trade Name Search
Aksaray – Aksaray Chamber of Commerce (in Turkish)
Bursa – Bursa Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Search for Member Companies
Gaziantep – Gaziantep Chamber of Commerce – Member Search (in Turkish)
Istanbul – Istanbul Chamber of Commerce – Company Search
Konya – Konya Chamber of Commerce – Company Directory (in Turkish)
Mersin – Mersin Chamber of Commerce (in Turkish)
Trinidad and Tobago
Companies Registry
Trinidad and Tobago Securities and Exchange Commission – Registered Companies, Individuals & Securities
Uganda
Uganda Registration Services Bureau
Register of Providers
Ukraine
Ukraine
State Enterprise Information Resource Centre (Ukrainian: Інформаційно-ресурсний центр - Пошук в ЄДР) — official, searchable companies register for Ukraine. (languages: Ukrainian only)
State Fiscal Service:
Business Search — (languages: Ukrainian only)
Register of VAT payers — (languages: Ukrainian only)
Register of Fixed (or single) tax payers — (languages: Ukrainian only)
State Commission for Regulation of Financial Services Markets:
Integrated Information System — (languages: Ukrainian only)
Other registers — (languages: Ukrainian only)
Unified Register of Civic Organizations — maintained by the Ministry of Justice
United Arab Emirates
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Umm al-Quwain – Chamber of Commerce and Industry (in Arabic)
United Kingdom
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Companies House — the official UK body to which UK companies must send their accounts. Companies House has two ways to search for company and director information:
WebCHeck
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British Overseas Territories
Anguilla: Anguilla Financial Services — Anguilla Commercial Online Registration Network (ACORN) (registration required)
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Cayman Islands:
General Registry (subscription)
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Companies House Gibraltar (subscription required) closed access
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Guernsey Registry — includes the Bailiwick of Guernsey Intellectual Property Office which administers all trademark and design registrations and activities, and provides information on the intellectual property laws enacted in the Bailiwick.
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The Companies Registry — responsible for the regulation of Manx companies, as well as the administration of legislation relating to foreign companies, limited liability companies, business names, limited partnerships, and societies incorporated under the Industrial and Building Societies Acts. It is part of the Isle of Man Government. There is a searchable directory.
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JFSC Companies Registry — maintained by the Jersey Financial Services Commission.
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission – Search for Company Filings
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Uzbekistan
Registration of limited, stock and other types of the companies are made on municipal level. Online registration of companies and register is available in the center of state services Bir Darcha.
Vanuatu
Vanuatu Financial Services Commission
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Yemen
Ministry of Industry and Trade (in Arabic)
Zambia
Patents and Companies Registration Agency
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Department of Deeds, Companies & Intellectual Property
Other
the European Business Register Network (EBR) is a network of trade registers kept by the registration authorities in most of the European countries
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift), legally S.W.I.F.T. SC, is a Belgian cooperative society providing services related to the execution of financial transactions and payments between certain banks worldwide. Its principal function is to serve as the main messaging network through which international payments are initiated. It also sells software and services to financial institutions, mostly for use on its proprietary "SWIFTNet", and assigns ISO 9362 Business Identifier Codes (BICs), popularly known as "Swift codes".
The Swift messaging network is a component of the global payments system. Swift acts as a carrier of the "messages containing the payment instructions between financial institutions involved in a transaction". However, the organisation does not manage accounts on behalf of individuals or financial institutions, and it does not hold funds from third parties. It also does not perform clearing or settlement functions. After a payment has been initiated, it must be settled through a payment system, such as TARGET2 in Europe. In the context of cross-border transactions, this step often takes place through correspondent banking accounts that financial institutions have with each other.
As of 2018, around half of all high-value cross-border payments worldwide used the Swift network, and in 2015, Swift linked more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries and territories, who were exchanging an average of over 32 million messages per day (compared to an average of 2.4 million daily messages in 1995).
Though widely utilised, Swift has been criticised for its inefficiency. In 2018, the London-based Financial Times noted that transfers frequently "pass through multiple banks before reaching their final destination, making them time-consuming, costly and lacking transparency on how much money will arrive at the other end". Swift has since introduced an improved service called "Global Payments Innovation" (GPI), claiming it was adopted by 165 banks and was completing half its payments within 30 minutes. The new standard which included Swift Go was supposed to be utilised in receiving and transferring low-value international payments. One of the significant changes was the transaction amount, which would not differ from start to the end. However, as of 2023, uptake was mixed. For instance, Alisherov Eraj, Alif Bank Treasury Department Swift Transfers & Banking Relationship Expert in the Republic of Tajikistan, describes that the leading cause for the late Swift Go adoption in Tajikistan was the Core Banking System itself. To connect to Swift Go, he adds, banking system interfaces needed to be upgraded and integrate with their software to be fully compatible, this hindered many banks from adopting the technology earlier.
As a cooperative society under Belgian law, Swift is owned by its member financial institutions. It is headquartered in La Hulpe, Belgium, near Brussels; its main building was designed by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura and completed in 1989. The chairman of Swift is Graeme Munro of United Kingdom, and its CEO is Javier Pérez-Tasso of Spain. Swift hosts an annual conference, called Sibos, specifically aimed at the financial services industry.
History
SWIFT was founded in Brussels on 3 May 1973 under the leadership of its inaugural Swedish CEO, Carl Reuterskiöld (1973–1989), a former employee at Wallenberg-owned Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, and was supported by 239 banks in 15 countries. Before its establishment, international financial transactions were communicated over Telex, a public system involving manual writing and reading of messages. It was set up out of fear of what might happen if a single private and fully American entity controlled global financial flows – which before was First National City Bank (FNCB) of New York – later Citibank. In response to FNCB's protocol, FNCB's competitors in the US and Europe pushed an alternative "messaging system that could replace the public providers and speed up the payment process". SWIFT started to establish common standards for financial transactions and a shared data processing system and worldwide communications network designed by Logica and developed by the Burroughs Corporation. Fundamental operating procedures and rules for liability were established in 1975, and the first message was sent in 1977. SWIFT's first international (non-European) operations centre was inaugurated by Governor John N. Dalton of Virginia in 1979.
Standards
SWIFT has become the industry standard for syntax in financial messages. Messages formatted to SWIFT standards can be read and processed by many well-known financial processing systems, whether or not the message travelled over the SWIFT network. SWIFT cooperates with international organizations for defining standards for message format and content. SWIFT is also Registration authority (RA) for the following ISO standards:
ISO 9362: 1994 Banking – Banking telecommunication messages – Bank identifier codes
ISO 10383: 2003 Securities and related financial instruments – Codes for exchanges and market identification (MIC)
ISO 13616: 2003 IBAN Registry
ISO 15022: 1999 Securities – Scheme for messages (Data Field Dictionary) (replaces ISO 7775)
ISO 20022-1: 2004 and ISO 20022-2:2007 Financial services – Universal Financial Industry message scheme
In RFC 3615 urn:swift: was defined as Uniform Resource Names (URNs) for SWIFT FIN.
Operations centres
The SWIFT secure messaging network is run from three data centres, located in the United States, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. These centres share information in near real-time. In case of a failure in one of the data centres, another is able to handle the traffic of the complete network. SWIFT uses submarine communications cables to transmit its data.
Shortly after opening its third data centre in Switzerland in 2009, SWIFT introduced new distributed architecture with two messaging zones, European and Trans-Atlantic, so data from European SWIFT members no longer mirrored the U.S. data centre. European zone messages are stored in the Netherlands and in part of the Swiss operating centre; Trans-Atlantic zone messages are stored in the United States and in another part of the Swiss operating centre that is segregated from the European zone messages. Countries outside of Europe were by default allocated to the Trans-Atlantic zone, but could choose to have their messages stored in the European zone.
Data centres
SN SWIFT data centres Type
1 Zoeterwoude, Netherlands OPC (Operating Centre)
2 Culpeper, Virginia, United States OPC (Operating Centre)
3 Diessenhofen, Switzerland OPC (Operating Centre)
4 Hong Kong Command and control
SWIFTNet network
SWIFT moved to its current IP network infrastructure, known as SWIFTNet, from 2001 to 2005, providing a total replacement of the previous X.25 infrastructure. The process involved the development of new protocols that facilitate efficient messaging, using existing and new message standards. The adopted technology chosen to develop the protocols was XML, where it now provides a wrapper around all messages legacy or contemporary. The communication protocols can be broken down into:
InterAct
SWIFTNet InterAct Realtime
SWIFTNet InterAct Store and Forward
FileAct
SWIFTNet FileAct Realtime
SWIFTNet FileAct Store and Forward
Browse
SWIFTNet Browse
Architecture
SWIFT provides a centralized store-and-forward mechanism, with some transaction management. For bank A to send a message to bank B with a copy or authorization involving institution C, it formats the message according to standards and securely sends it to SWIFT. SWIFT guarantees its secure and reliable delivery to B after the appropriate action by C. SWIFT guarantees are based primarily on high redundancy of hardware, software, and people.
SWIFTNet Phase 2
During 2007 and 2008, the entire SWIFT network migrated its infrastructure to a new protocol called SWIFTNet Phase 2. The main difference between Phase 2 and the former arrangement is that Phase 2 requires banks connecting to the network to use a Relationship Management Application (RMA) instead of the former bilateral key exchange (BKE) system. According to SWIFT's public information database on the subject, RMA software should eventually prove more secure and easier to keep up-to-date; however, converting to the RMA system meant that thousands of banks around the world had to update their international payments systems to comply with the new standards. RMA completely replaced BKE on 1 January 2009.
Products and interfaces
SWIFT means several things in the financial world:
a secure network for transmitting messages between financial institutions;
a set of syntax standards for financial messages (for transmission over SWIFTNet or any other network)
a set of connection software and services allowing financial institutions to transmit messages over SWIFT network.
Under 3 above, SWIFT provides turn-key solutions for members, consisting of linkage clients to facilitate connectivity to the SWIFT network and CBTs or "computer based terminals" which members use to manage the delivery and receipt of their messages. Some of the more well-known interfaces and CBTs provided to their members are:
SWIFTNet Link (SNL) software which is installed on the SWIFT customer's site and opens a connection to SWIFTNet. Other applications can only communicate with SWIFTNet through the SNL.
Alliance Gateway (SAG) software with interfaces (e.g., RAHA = Remote Access Host Adapter), allowing other software products to use the SNL to connect to SWIFTNet
Alliance WebStation (SAB) desktop interface for SWIFT Alliance Gateway with several usage options:
administrative access to the SAG
direct connection SWIFTNet by the SAG, to administrate SWIFT Certificates
so-called Browse connection to SWIFTNet (also by SAG) to use additional services, for example Target2
Alliance Access (SAA) and Alliance Messaging Hub (AMH) are the main messaging software applications by SWIFT, which allow message creation for FIN messages, routing and monitoring for FIN and MX messages. The main interfaces are FTA (files transfer automated, not FTP) and MQSA, a WebSphere MQ interface.
The Alliance Workstation (SAW) is the desktop software for administration, monitoring and FIN message creation. Since Alliance Access is not yet capable of creating MX messages, Alliance Messenger (SAM) has to be used for this purpose.
Alliance Web Platform (SWP) as new thin-client desktop interface provided as an alternative to existing Alliance WebStation, Alliance Workstation (soon)[when?] and Alliance Messenger.
Alliance Integrator built on Oracle's Java Caps which enables customer's back office applications to connect to Alliance Access or Alliance Entry.
Alliance Lite2 is a secure and reliable, cloud-based way to connect to the SWIFT network which is a light version of Alliance Access specifically targeting customers with low volume of traffic.
Services
There are four key areas that SWIFT services fall under in the financial marketplace: securities, treasury & derivatives, trade services. and payments-and-cash management.
Securities
SWIFTNet FIX (obsolete)
SWIFTNet Data Distribution
SWIFTNet Funds
SWIFTNet Accord for Securities (end of life October 2017)
Treasury and derivatives
SWIFTNet Accord for Treasury (end of life October 2017)
SWIFTNet Affirmations
SWIFTNet CLS Third Party Service
Cash management
SWIFTNet Bulk Payments
SWIFTNet Cash Reporting
SWIFTNet Exceptions and Investigations
Trade services
SWIFTNet Trade Services Utility
SWIFTREF
Swift Ref, the global payment reference data utility, is SWIFT's unique reference data service. Swift Ref sources data direct from data originators, including central banks, code issuers and banks making it easy for issuers and originators to maintain data regularly and thoroughly. SWIFTRef constantly validates and cross-checks data across the different data sets.
SWIFTNet Mail
SWIFT offers a secure person-to-person messaging service, SWIFTNet Mail, which went live on 16 May 2007. SWIFT clients can configure their existing email infrastructure to pass email messages through the highly secure and reliable SWIFTNet network instead of the open Internet. SWIFTNet Mail is intended for the secure transfer of sensitive business documents, such as invoices, contracts and signatories, and is designed to replace existing telex and courier services, as well as the transmission of security-sensitive data over the open Internet. Seven financial institutions, including HSBC, FirstRand Bank, Clearstream, DnB NOR, Nedbank, and Standard Bank of South Africa, as well as SWIFT piloted the service.
U.S. government involvement
Terrorist Finance Tracking Program
A series of articles published on 23 June 2006 in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times revealed a program, named the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, which the US Treasury Department, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other United States governmental agencies initiated after the 11 September attacks to gain access to the SWIFT transaction database.
After the publication of these articles, SWIFT quickly came under pressure for compromising the data privacy of its customers by allowing governments to gain access to sensitive personal information. In September 2006, the Belgian government declared that these SWIFT dealings with American governmental authorities were a breach of Belgian and European privacy laws.
In response, and to satisfy members' concerns about privacy, SWIFT began a process of improving its architecture by implementing a distributed architecture with a two-zone model for storing messages (see Operations centres).
Concurrently, the European Union negotiated an agreement with the United States government to permit the transfer of intra-EU SWIFT transaction information to the United States under certain circumstances. Because of concerns about its potential contents, the European Parliament adopted a position statement in September 2009, demanding to see the full text of the agreement and asking that it be fully compliant with EU privacy legislation, with oversight mechanisms emplaced to ensure that all data requests were handled appropriately. An interim agreement was signed without European Parliamentary approval by the European Council on 30 November 2009, the day before the Lisbon Treaty—which would have prohibited such an agreement from being signed under the terms of the codecision procedure—formally came into effect. While the interim agreement was scheduled to come into effect on 1 January 2010, the text of the agreement was classified as "EU Restricted" until translations could be provided in all EU languages and published on 25 January 2010.
On 11 February 2010, the European Parliament decided to reject the interim agreement between the EU and the US by 378 to 196 votes. One week earlier, the parliament's civil liberties committee had already rejected the deal, citing legal reservations.
In March 2011, it was reported that two mechanisms of data protection had failed: EUROPOL released a report complaining that requests for information from the US had been too vague (making it impossible to make judgments on validity) and that the guaranteed right for European citizens to know whether their information had been accessed by US authorities had not been put into practice.
Monitoring by the NSA
Der Spiegel reported in September 2013 that the National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors banking transactions via SWIFT, as well as credit card transactions. The NSA intercepted and retained data from the SWIFT network used by thousands of banks to securely send transaction information. SWIFT was named as a "target", according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden. The documents revealed that the NSA spied on SWIFT using a variety of methods, including reading "SWIFT printer traffic from numerous banks". In April 2017, a group known as the Shadow Brokers released files allegedly from the NSA which indicate that the agency monitored financial transactions made through SWIFT.
Use in sanctions
Belarus
The European Union issued the first set of sanctions against Belarus - the first was introduced on 27 February 2022, which banned certain categories of Belarusian items in the EU, including timber, steel, mineral fuels and tobacco. After the Lithuanian prime minister proposed disconnecting Belarus from SWIFT, the European Union, which does not recognise Lukashenko as the legitimate President of Belarus, started to plan an extension of the sanctions already issued against Russian entities and top officials to its ally.
Iran
In January 2012, the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) implemented a campaign calling on SWIFT to end all relations with Iran's banking system, including the Central Bank of Iran. UANI asserted that Iran's membership in SWIFT violated US and EU financial sanctions against Iran as well as SWIFT's own corporate rules.
Consequently, in February 2012, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee unanimously approved sanctions against SWIFT aimed at pressuring it to terminate its ties with blacklisted Iranian banks. Expelling Iranian banks from SWIFT would potentially deny Iran access to billions of dollars in revenue using SWIFT but not from using IVTS. Mark Wallace, president of UANI, praised the Senate Banking Committee.
Initially SWIFT denied that it was acting illegally, but later[when?] said that "it is working with U.S. and European governments to address their concerns that its financial services are being used by Iran to avoid sanctions and conduct illicit business". Targeted banks would be—amongst others—Saderat Bank of Iran, Bank Mellat, Post Bank of Iran and Sepah Bank. On 17 March 2012, following agreement two days earlier between all 27 member states of the Council of the European Union and the Council's subsequent ruling, SWIFT disconnected all Iranian banks that had been identified as institutions in breach of current EU sanctions from its international network and warned that even more Iranian financial institutions could be disconnected from the network.
In February 2016, most Iranian banks reconnected to the network following the lift of sanctions due to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Russia
See also: SWIFT ban against Russian banks
Similarly, in August 2014 the UK planned to press the EU to block Russian use of SWIFT as a sanction due to Russian military intervention in Ukraine. However, SWIFT refused to do so. SPFS, a Russian alternative to SWIFT, was developed by the Central Bank of Russia as a backup measure.
During the prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States developed preliminary possible sanctions against Russia, but excluded banning Russia from SWIFT. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the foreign ministers of the Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia called for Russia to be cut off from SWIFT. However, other EU member states were reluctant, both because European lenders held most of the nearly $30 billion in foreign banks' exposure to Russia and because Russia had developed the SPFS alternative. The European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States finally agreed to remove few Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine; the governments of France, Germany, Italy and Japan individually released statements alongside the EU.
On 20 March 2023, the Russian Federation banned the use of SWIFT.
Israel
In 2014, SWIFT rejected calls from pro-Palestinian activists to revoke Israeli banks' access to its network owing to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
Competitors
Alternatives to the SWIFT system include:
CIPS: sponsored by China, for trade-related deals to internationalize Chinese currency RMB use. 1280 financial institutions in 103 countries and regions have connected to the system
SFMS: sponsored by India
SPFS: developed by the Russian Federation
INSTEX: sponsored by the European Union, limited to non-USD transactions for trade with Iran, largely unused and ineffective
Security
See also: Bangladesh Bank robbery
In 2016 an $81 million theft from the Bangladesh central bank via its account at the New York Federal Reserve Bank was traced to hacker penetration of SWIFT's Alliance Access software, according to a New York Times report. It was not the first such attempt, the society acknowledged, and the security of the transfer system was undergoing new examination accordingly. Soon after the reports of the theft from the Bangladesh central bank, a second, apparently related, attack was reported to have occurred on a commercial bank in Vietnam.
Both attacks involved malware written to both issue unauthorized SWIFT messages and to conceal that the messages had been sent. After the malware sent the SWIFT messages that stole the funds, it deleted the database record of the transfers then took further steps to prevent confirmation messages from revealing the theft. In the Bangladeshi case, the confirmation messages would have appeared on a paper report; the malware altered the paper reports when they were sent to the printer. In the second case, the bank used a PDF report; the malware altered the PDF viewer to hide the transfers.
In May 2016, Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador sued Wells Fargo after Wells Fargo honoured $12 million in fund transfer requests that had been placed by thieves. In this case, the thieves sent SWIFT messages that resembled recently cancelled transfer requests from BDA, with slightly altered amounts; the reports do not detail how the thieves gained access to send the SWIFT messages. BDA asserts that Wells Fargo should have detected the suspicious SWIFT messages, which were placed outside of normal BDA working hours and were of an unusual size. Wells Fargo claims that BDA is responsible for the loss, as the thieves gained access to the legitimate SWIFT credentials of a BDA employee and sent fully authenticated SWIFT messages.
In the first half of 2016, an anonymous Ukrainian bank and others—even "dozens" that are not being made public—were variously reported to have been "compromised" through the SWIFT network and to have lost money.
In March 2022, Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported about the increased security precautions by the State Police of Thurgau at the SWIFT data centre in Diessenhofen. After most of the Russian banks have been excluded from the private payment system, the risk of sabotage was considered higher. Inhabitants of the town described the large complex as a "fortress" or "prison" where frequent security check of the fenced property are conducted.
A payment gateway is a merchant service provided by an e-commerce application service provider that authorizes credit card or direct payments processing for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. The payment gateway may be provided by a bank to its customers, but can be provided by a specialised financial service provider as a separate service, such as a payment service provider.
A payment gateway facilitates a payment transaction by the transfer of information between a payment portal (such as a website, mobile phone or interactive voice response service) and the front end processor or acquiring bank.
Payment gateways are a service that helps merchants initiate ecommerce, in-app, and point of sale payments for a broad variety of payment methods. The gateway is not directly involved in the money flow; typically it is a web server to which a merchant's website or POS system is connected. A payment gateway often connects several acquiring banks and payment methods under one system.
Typical transaction processes
When a customer orders a product from a payment gateway-enabled merchant, the payment gateway performs a variety of tasks to process the transaction.
A customer places an order on website by pressing the 'Submit Order' or equivalent button, or perhaps enters their card details using an automatic phone answering service.
If the order is via a website, the customer's web browser encrypts the information to be sent between the browser and the merchant's webserver. In between other methods, this may be done via SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption. The payment gateway may allow transaction data to be sent directly from the customer's browser to the gateway, bypassing the merchant's systems. This reduces the merchant's Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance obligations without redirecting the customer away from the website.
The merchant then forwards the transaction details to their payment gateway. This is another (SSL) encrypted connection to the payment server hosted by the payment gateway.
The payment gateway converts the message from XML to ISO 8583 or a variant message format (format understood by EFT Switches) and then forwards the transaction information to the payment processor used by the merchant's acquiring bank.
The payment processor forwards the transaction information to the card association (I.e.: Visa/MasterCard/American Express). If an American Express or Discover Card was used, then the card association also acts as the issuing bank and directly provides a response of approved or declined to the payment gateway. Otherwise [e.g.: MasterCard or Visa card was used], the card association routes the transaction to the correct card issuing bank.
The credit card issuing bank receives the authorization request, verifies the credit or debit available and then sends a response back to the processor (via the same process as the request for authorization) with a response code (I.e.:: approved, denied). In addition to communicating the fate of the authorization request, the response code is also used to define the reason why the transaction failed (I.e.: insufficient funds, or bank link not available). Meanwhile, the credit card issuer holds an authorization associated with that merchant and consumer for the approved amount. This can impact the consumer's ability to spend further (because it reduces the line of credit available or it puts a hold on a portion of the funds in a debit account).
The processor forwards the authorization response to the payment gateway.
The payment gateway receives the response, and forwards it onto the website, or whatever interface was used to process the payment, where it is interpreted as a relevant response, then relayed back to the merchant and cardholder. This is known as the Authorization or "Auth."
The entire process typically takes 2–3 seconds.
The merchant then fulfills the order and the above process can be repeated but this time to "Clear" the authorization by consummating the transaction. Typically, the "Clear" is initiated only after the merchant has fulfilled the transaction (I.e. shipped the order). This results in the issuing bank 'clearing' the 'auth' (I.e. moves auth-hold to a debit) and prepares them to settle with the merchant acquiring bank.
The merchant submits all their approved authorizations, in a "batch" (end of the day), to their acquiring bank for settlement via its processor. This typically reduces or "Clears" the corresponding "Auth" if it has not been explicitly "Cleared."
The acquiring bank makes the batch settlement request of the credit card issuer.
The credit card issuer makes a settlement payment to the acquiring bank (the next day in most cases).
The acquiring bank subsequently deposits the total of the approved funds into the merchant's nominated account (the same day or next day). This could be an account with the acquiring bank if the merchant does their banking with the same bank, or an account with another bank.
The entire process from authorization to settlement to funding typically takes 3 days.
Many payment gateways also provide tools to automatically screen orders for fraud and calculate tax in real time prior to the authorization request being sent to the processor. Tools to detect fraud include geolocation, velocity pattern analysis, OFAC list lookups, 'deny-list' lookups, delivery address verification, computer finger printing technology, identity morphing detection, and basic AVS checks.
In easy words, a transaction processes with the following steps;
1: When the customer enters their card detail in the payment gateway, the payment gateway transfers it securely to the Merchant’s account.
2: Then a request is sent through your merchant account to the payment processor.
3: The payment processor then sends the request to the issuing(customer’s) bank.
4: If the transaction is approved the customer’s account is debited and the funds are transferred to Merchant’s(Acquiring) bank.
This is how a transaction works in simple words.
White label payment gateway
Some payment gateways offer white label services, which allow payment service providers, e-commerce platforms, ISOs, resellers, or acquiring banks to fully brand the payment gateway’s technology as their own. This means PSPs or other third parties can own the end-to-end user experience without bringing payments operations—and additional risk management and compliance responsibility—in house, although the party offering the white labelled solution to its customers might still be responsible for some regulatory requirements such as Know your customer.
A remittance is a non-commercial transfer of money by a foreign worker, a member of a diaspora community, or a citizen with familial ties abroad, for household income in their home country or homeland. Money sent home by migrants competes with international aid as one of the largest financial inflows to developing countries. Workers' remittances are a significant part of international capital flows, especially with regard to labor-exporting countries.
Due to its large diaspora, India consecutively remains the top receiver of remittance. In 2022, the top five recipient countries for remittances inflows in current USD were India (US$100 billion), Mexico (US$60 billion), China (US$51 billion), the Philippines (US$38 billion), Egypt (US$32 billion) and Pakistan (US$29 billion).
Global extent
Remittance has been defined by the World Bank as the part of the earnings, which a migrant worker sends back to family members in the country of origin. World wide the flow of remittance has increased from US$72.3 billion in 2001 to approximately US$483 billion in 2011. According to the World Bank, in 2018 overall global remittance grew 10% to US$689 billion, including US$528 billion in 2019 to developing countries. Overall global remittance is expected to grow 3.7% to US$715 billion in 2019, including US$549 billion to developing nations.
Economic research has focused on the motivation for remittance, suggesting that the key drivers for remittance are altruism, self-interest in exchange, and repayment of past expense. A mix of motivations may coexist, in scientific literature this state of mind is sumarised as "tempered altruism and enlightened selfishness".
Remittances make up a significant portion of economies of developing countries. Many receive over 10% of their gross domestic product (GDP) in remittances each year, with some exceptional cases as high as a third of their GDP.
International remittances have a major impact on developing countries around the world because the majority of remittances, some $441 billion in 2015, goes to developing economies. This amount is nearly triple the $131 billion of global Official Development Assistance.
Top recipient countries
Note: The countries mentioned below are the largest 15 recipient countries of remittances only for the year 2013. World Bank data is used for all countries and years.
As a share of GDP, the top recipients of remittances in 2013 were Tajikistan (42.1%), Kyrgyzstan (31.5%), Nepal (28.8%), Moldova (24.9%), Lesotho (24.4%), Samoa (23.8%), Haiti (21.1%), Armenia (21.0%), The Gambia (19.8%), Liberia (18.5%), Lebanon (17.0%), Honduras (16.9%), Timor-Leste (16.6%), El Salvador (16.4%), Kosovo (16.1%), Jamaica (15.0%) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (8.0%, which is 1.963 billion $ for 2022 on 31 December 2022 conversion rate between € and US$).
Major operators
The licensed money transmitter Western Union allows customers to designate a recipient who can pick up that money at any a Western Union agent. Western Union also operates as bureau de change with a fee ranging from eight to twelve percent. Western Union is the world's leading handler of remittance and the 170,000 Western Union agents handle about 25 percent of the total global remittance traffic.
Other companies such as MoneyGram have also been a key player for decades. Pure play money transfer providers may be owned by parent companies with more diverse interests. Two players dominate the international electronic funds transfer for interbank payments between two bank accounts. These are the Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). Businesses as well as banks can subscribe to the international communications network Telex and initiate international financial transfers.
Wise has been the fastest-growing money transfer startup in terms of total annual volume transferred, and focuses on transferring funds between bank accounts, often between developed countries. Ria Money Transfer has had an established presence among Spanish speakers in North America and Spain. WorldRemit has a higher share of African migrants located worldwide, while Azimo focuses specifically on the European market with an emphasis on migrant communities. Companies such as WorldRemit, Remitly, and Azimo have smaller average transfer amounts due to the higher share of working-class migrants using their services.
Although the remittance market share has diversified when fintech startups entered the market in the 2010s, Western Union continues to dominate the majority of the remittance market share. Since the advent of fintech, many digital remittances have emerged on the scene, leading to the rise of comparison platforms or aggregators such as FXcompared and Monito in Europe and Send4x in Southeast Asia. Blockchain-based remittances companies are also starting to be used and offer such advantages as fast transfer time and relatively low transaction costs.
2007–2008 financial crisis
The 2007–2008 financial crisis was triggered in the United States and rippled through the financial system in developed countries. Nevertheless, throughout the 2007–2008 financial crisis remittance was among the less volatile sources of foreign exchange for developing countries. In financial literature, remittance send by migrant workers to households in the country of origin, is regarded as countercyclical when the economy is struck by hardship such as a financial crisis, natural disaster, or political instability. In 2009 remittance payments to developing countries declined globally for the first time in recorded history of the global financial system. But with a decline of only 5.2 percent in 2009, remittance was significantly less precarious than private capital flows including foreign direct investment.
By region
The United States has been the leading source of remittances globally every year since 1983. Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland have been the next largest senders of remittances since 2007. Between 9 million and 11 million workers send remittances from Russia each year.
Asia
A majority of the remittances have been directed to Asian countries like India (approx. US$87.0 billion in 2021), China (approx. US$ 60.0 billion in 2021), the Philippines (approx. US$33.5 billion in 2020), Pakistan (US$26.0 billion in 2020), Bangladesh (US$21.5 billion in 2020) and more. Asian countries such as Tajikistan and Nepal are among the countries that rely the most on remittances, accounting for 35% and 25% of their GDP respectively.
Most of the remittances happen by the conventional channel of agents, like Western Union, Ria Money Transfer, ACE Money Transfer, Sigue Money Transfer, MoneyGram, UAE Exchange, and similar. However, with the increasing relevance and reach of the Internet, online and mobile phone money transfers have grown significantly.
Armenia
See also: Armenian diaspora
Remittances are a major component of the Armenian economy. making up about 13% of Armenia’s GDP in 2011. In 2013 around 40% of families of Armenia have received remittances. As a result, Armenia falls in the top 20 countries worldwide for receiving remittances. Total remittances to Armenia have reached their peak in 2013 being equal to $2.192 billion but plummeted after the 2014 Russian ruble devaluation and reached $1.528 billion in 2019.
Armenia falls in the top 20 countries worldwide for receiving remittances. Armenia, being a country with one of the largest diasporas in the world, provides a case study of a developing economy that is dependent on remittances and the financial support they provide. Total remittances to Armenia reached $1.87 billion in 2013, a 10.8%. A study conducted in 2004 examined the impact of remittances from a micro perspective, and determined that households with average income were the most likely to have a family member abroad because poorer households lacked the financial ability to send family members out of the country and the most wealthy households did not have a reason to.
In 2017, the majority of remittance flows to Armenia originated from Russia, about 60.5% of overall remittances. The figure amounted to nearly $945 million due to more than 2 million Armenian population living in Russia. The next biggest inflows were recorded from the US, over $160 million, 10.25% of the overall figure (around 500,000-1,000,000 Armenian population). According to the IMF, starting from 2010 remittances in USD, AMD (Armenian dram), and Rubles, grew until they hit their peak in 2014 and started declining after that in a volatile fashion as a result of the Russian ruble devaluation. Remittances in AMD and USD declined to almost their 2010 levels.
Bangladesh
Main article: Remittances to Bangladesh
See also: Bangladeshi diaspora
An estimated 10 million Bangladeshis, working abroad have sent $15 billion to home in 2018 and $18.32 billion in 2019. It is country's second-largest source of foreign earnings after its gigantic textile industry. Bangladesh is one of the top 10 countries in the world for migration and remittance according to World Bank. Most of the remittances come from gulf countries.
India
India is the world's top receiver of remittances, claiming more than 12% of the world's remittances in 2015. Indians living overseas are the world's largest diaspora. As per the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA), remittance is received from the approximately 35 million members of the Indian diaspora. Remittances to India stood at US$68.968 billion in 2017 and remittances from India to other countries totalled US$5.710 billion, for a net inflow of US$63.258 billion in 2017.
Jordan
The flow of remittances to Jordan experienced rapid growth during the 1970s and 1980s when Jordan started exporting skilled labor to the Persian Gulf. These remittances represent an important source of funding for many developing countries, including Jordan. According to the World Bank data on remittances, with about US$3 billion in 2010 Jordan ranked at 10th place among all developing countries. Jordan ranked among the top 20 recipients of remittances for the preceding decade. In addition, the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) statistics in 2010 indicate that Jordan was the third biggest recipient of remittances among Arab countries after Egypt and Lebanon. The host countries that have absorbed most of the Jordanian expatriates are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where the available data indicate that about 90% of Jordanian migrants are working in the Persian Gulf.
Philippines
According to a World Bank Study, the Philippines is the second largest recipient for remittances in Asia. It was estimated in 1994 that migrants sent over US$2.6 billion back to the Philippines through formal banking systems. With the addition of money sent through private finance companies and return migrants, the 1994 total was closer to US$6 billion annually.
The total is estimated to have grown by 7.8 percent annually to reach US$21.3 billion in 2010. Remittances are a reliable source of revenue for the Philippines, accounting for 8.9 per cent of the country's GDP.
The Estrada administration in 2000 declared it "The Year of Overseas Filipino Worker in the Recognition of the Determination and Supreme Self-Sacrifice of Overseas Filipino Workers." This declaration connects monetary remittances of overseas workers as the top foreign-exchange earnings in the Philippines.
Turkey
Since the 2000s remittances from Turkey has been increasing, reaching US$1.49 billion in 2021 according to the World Bank. Although remittances to Turkey had been a significant part of the economy in the past, since the 2000s they only represent a fraction of the Turkish economy with 0.1% of the total GDP.
Since the Syrian civil war the foreign-born population of Turkey has been growing. It was reported that Syrians in Turkey were using the "hawala system" to send money to their country of origin. According to economist Gözde Güran remittances sent through hawala has become an integral part of the Syrian economy.
Latin America and the Caribbean
In Latin America and the Caribbean, remittances play an important role in the economy of the region, totaling over US$66.5 billion in 2007, with about 75% originating in the United States. This total represents more than the sum of Foreign direct investment and official development aid combined. In seven Latin American and Caribbean countries, remittances even account for more than 10% of GDP and exceed the dollar flows of the largest export product in almost every country in the region.
Percentages ranged from 2% in Mexico, to 18% in El Salvador, 21% in Honduras, and up to 30% in Haiti. The Inter American Development Bank's Multilateral Investment Fund (IDB-MIF) has been the leading agency on regional remittance research.
Mexico received remittance inflows of almost US$24 billion in 2007, 95% of which originated in the US.
North America
United States
A 2004 study found that over 60% of the 16.5 million Latin American-born adults who resided in the United States at the time of the survey regularly sent money home. The remittances sent by these 10 million immigrants were transmitted via more than 100 million individual transactions per year and amounted to an estimated $30 billion during 2004. Each transaction averaged about $150–$250, and, because these migrants tended to send smaller amounts more frequently than others, their remittances had a higher percentage of costs due to transfer fees.
Migrants sent approximately 10% of their household incomes; these remittances made up a corresponding 50–80% of the household incomes for the recipients. Significant amounts of remittances were sent from 37 U.S. states, but six states were identified as the "traditional sending" states: New York (which led the group with 81% of its immigrants making regular remittances), California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey. According to the Mexican central bank, remittances grew just 0.6 during the first six months of 2007, as compared to 23% during the same period in 2006. Experts attribute the slowdown to a contraction in the U.S. construction industry, tighter border controls, and a crackdown in the U.S. on illegal immigration.
Remittance culture in the United States has contributed to the formation of "micro-geographies", tightly knit networks that integrate U.S. communities with communities throughout Latin America, such as migrants from Oaxaca, Mexico, who have settled in Venice Beach, California. Oaxacans not only send money back to their communities, but they also travel back and forth extensively.
As of recently[when?], remittances from the United States to Latin America have been on the decline. While there were US$69.2 billion worth of remittances sent in 2008, that figure has fallen to $58.9 billion for 2011. This trend is a result of many factors including the global recession, more economic opportunity in Latin American countries, and rising fees charged by coyotes to smuggle immigrants across the border.
The pattern of migration has changed from a circular flow, in which immigrants work in the United States for a few years before returning to their families in their home countries, to a one-way stream whereby migrants find themselves stuck in the United States. As a result, the new wave of migrants is both less likely to leave and more likely to stay in the United States for longer periods of time. Overall, this trend has contributed to falling levels of remittances sent to Latin American countries from the United States.
Africa
Remittances to Africa play an important role in national economies. However, little data exists as many rely on informal channels to send money home. Immigrants from Africa today number approximately 20 to 30 million adults, who send around US$40 billion annually to their families and local communities back home. For the region as a whole, this represents 50 percent more than net official development assistance (ODA) from all sources, and, for most countries, the amount also exceeds foreign direct investment (FDI). In several fragile states, remittances are estimated to exceed 50 percent of GDP.
Most African countries restrict the payment of remittances to banks, which in turn, typically enter into exclusive arrangements with large money transfer companies, like Western Union or Money Gram, to operate on their behalf. This results in limited competition and limited access for consumers, which allows these Money Transfer Operators (MTOs) to charge the highest fees for remittances in the world. However, there are a number of new players aiming to disrupt this established MTO model, such as Xoom and Willstream, which leverage increasing mobile phone penetration in the region and provide different rate structures to Diaspora customers. Additionally, global initiative like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 has a target of reducing the transaction costs of migrant remittances to less than 3 percent by 2030.
According to a World Bank study, Nigeria is by far the top remittance recipient in Africa, accounting for $10 billion in 2010, a slight increase over the previous year ($9.6 billion). Other top recipients include Sudan ($3.2 billion), Kenya ($1.8 billion), Senegal ($1.2 billion), South Africa ($1.0 billion), Uganda ($0.8 billion), Lesotho ($0.5 billion), Ethiopia ($387 million), Mali ($385 million), and Togo ($302 million). As a share of Gross Domestic Product, the top recipients in 2009 were: Lesotho (25%), Togo (10%), Cape Verde (9%), Guinea-Bissau (9%), Senegal (9%), Gambia (8%), Liberia (6%), Sudan (6%), Nigeria (6%), and Kenya (5%).
Nigeria
A major source of foreign-exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad. In 2014, 17.5 million Nigerians lived in foreign countries, with the UK and the US having more than 2 million Nigerians each.
According to the International Organization for Migration, Nigeria witnessed a dramatic increase in remittances sent home from overseas Nigerians, going from US$2.3 billion in 2004 to 17.9 billion in 2007, representing 6.7% of GDP. In 2016, remittances reached a new record of $35 billion. The United States accounts for the largest portion of official remittances, followed by the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Spain and France. On the African continent, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Libya, and South Africa are important source countries of remittance flows to Nigeria, while China is the biggest remittance-sending country in Asia.
An August 2016 Nigerian Central Bank (NCB) decision to suspend the operations of all MTOs in the country, except those of Western Union, MoneyGram and Rio, was met with a strong backlash. It was argued that the decision was not appropriately justified, while also standing in contrast to the NCB's previous move to ban all exclusivity agreements with Western Union. The decision was considered to disproportionally strengthen the dominant position of Western Union, MoneyGram and Rio. Under pressure, however, the Central Bank reversed the decision and granted new licenses to a number of competing MTOs.
Somalia
Somali expatriates often send remittances to their relatives in Greater Somalia through Dahabshiil and other Somali-owned money transfer companies. In order to ensure that these funds go to their intended recipients rather than Al-Shabaab and other militant groups, the governments of the United States, Australia, and a number of other Western countries tightened their banking requirements or stopped processing altogether the remittances. To address the concerns, the United States Congress passed the Money Remittances Improvement Act of 2014.
In April 2015, the Federal Cabinet of Somalia also officially launched the Special Task Force on Remittances (STFR). The multi-agency initiative is mandated with facilitating the Federal Government of Somalia's new national policy pertaining to the money transfer industry. Its main priority is centered on establishing a comprehensive strategy and a consultative implementation plan for the formalization of the local financial sector. Additionally, the STFR is tasked with helping to foster a business environment and financial infrastructure conducive to growth. It is also empowered to coordinate and speed up the endorsement of financial governance instruments and transparency associated legislation, such as the laws on Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Financing of Terrorism (CFT). In accordance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)'s recommendations, the STFR is in turn slated to oversee the Somali federal government's campaign to ratify various international treaties. The Task Forces' membership is scheduled to be announced shortly, and will be drawn from government institutions, the remittance industry, banks, and other key private sector stakeholders.
History
Several European countries, for example Spain, Italy, and Ireland were heavily dependent on remittances received from their emigrants during the 19th and 20th centuries. In the case of Spain, remittances amounted to 21% of all of its current account income in 1946. All of those countries created policies on remittances developed after significant research efforts in the field. For instance, Italy was the first country in the world to enact a law to protect remittances in 1901 while Spain was the first country to sign an international treaty with Argentina in 1960 to lower the cost of the remittances received.
21st century
Since 2000, remittances have increased sharply worldwide, having almost tripled to $529 billion in 2012. In 2012, migrants from India and China alone sent more than $130 billion to their home countries.
In 2004 the G8 met at the Sea Island Summit and decided to take action to lower the costs for migrant workers who send money back to their friends and families in their country of origin. In light of this, various G8 government developmental organizations, such as the UK government's Department for International Development (DFID) and USAID began to look into ways in which the cost of remitting money could be lowered.
In September 2008, the World Bank established the first international database of remittance prices. The Remittance Prices Worldwide Database provides data on sending and receiving remittances for over 200 "country corridors" worldwide. The "corridors" examined include remittance flows from 32 major sending countries to 89 receiving countries, which account for more than 60% of total remittances to developing countries. The resulting publication of the Remittance Prices Worldwide Database serves four major purposes: benchmarking improvements, allowing comparisons across countries, supporting consumers’ choices, and putting pressure on service providers to improve their services.
At the July 2009 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, G8 heads of government and states endorsed the objective of reducing the cost of remittance services by five percentage points in five years. To drive down costs, the World Bank has begun certifying regional and national databases that use a consistent methodology to compare the cost of sending remittances.
At the G20 2011 Summit in Cannes, Bill Gates stated that, "If the transaction costs on remittances worldwide were cut from where they are today at around 10% to an average of 5% it would unlock $15bn a year in poor countries." A number of low-cost online services have emerged with the objective of lowering the cost of money transfers to developing and emerging economies. There are also a number of comparison sites when it comes to remittance which breaks down the costs of sending money overseas.
According to the World Bank remittance to low- and middle-income countries reached $529 billion in 2018, which was a record high.
Dynamics
Emergencies
During disasters or emergencies, remittances can be a vital source of income for people whose other forms of livelihood may have been destroyed by conflict or natural disaster. According to the Overseas Development Institute, this is being increasingly recognized as important by aid actors who are considering better ways of supporting people in emergency responses. An illustrative example can be Armenia, that had experienced a devastating earthquake in Spitak on December 7, 1988, when the Karabakh conflict had already started. About 45,000 people have died, while 500,000 became homeless. Armenia got help from different countries, for example, the U.S. government immediately sent $10 million, which helped to more or less recover the economy. Refugees and other displaced populations also often remit to family members left behind in conflict areas.
Potential security concerns
The recent internationally coordinated effort to stifle possible sources of money laundering and/or terrorist financing has increased the cost of sending remittances, directly increasing costs to the companies facilitating the sending, and indirectly increasing the costs to the person remitting. As in some corridors a sizable amount of remittances is sent through informal channels (family connections, traveling friends, local money lenders, etc.). According to the World Bank, some countries do not report remittances data.
Moreover, when data is available, the methodologies used by countries for remittance data compilation are not publicly available. A 2010 world survey of central banks found significant differences in the quality of remittance data collection across countries: some central banks only used remittances data reported from commercial banks, neglecting to account for remittance flows via money transfer operators and post offices.
Remittances can be difficult to track and potentially sensitive to money laundering (AML) and terror financing (CTF) concerns. Since 9/11 many governments and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) have taken steps to address informal value transfer systems. This is done through nations' Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs). The principle legislative initiatives in this area are the USA PATRIOT Act, Title III in the United States and, in the EU, through a series of EU Money Laundering Directives. Though no serious terror risk should be associated with migrants sending money to their families, misuse of the financial system remains a serious government concern.
Economic benefits for developing countries
The extent to which remittances produce benefits for developing countries is argued.
World Bank economists contend that remittance receivers' higher propensity to own a bank account means that remittances can promote access to financial services for the sender and recipient, claimed to be an essential aspect of leveraging remittances to promote economic development. For example, in Armenia, which has one of the highest remittance to GDP ratios, studies suggest that those households which receive remittances have a higher propensity to save, however, as opposed to some theoretic frameworks, these savings are not used to leverage borrowing more from the financial system as a way to grow their businesses. Other studies suggest that another channel through which remittances can foster economic growth is a household investment. For instance, the study conducted in South Caucasus reveals that in Armenia having a migrant household member is associated with a higher probability of establishing a family business by that household. Thus, the remittances sent by migrants can potentially encourage domestic investment, ensuring economic growth. However, new findings for Armenia suggest that remittances help potential migrants to ease the migration process, serving as a resource rather than as a contractual tool between migrants and non-migrants. It is concluded that remittances drastically shift emigration intentions upward. The need for remittances, and the ability and the strength of the migrant social capital (or the network) are factors which jointly determine emigration intentions. Meanwhile, critical migration scholars have expressed concern about the ability of remittances to address the structural causes of economic underdevelopment and see an increasing policy emphasis on finance as symptomatic of a paradigmatic shift towards a 'self-help development' that burdens the poor.
Remittances are generally thought to be counter-cyclical. The stability of remittance flows amidst financial crises and economic downturns make them a reliable source of foreign exchange earnings for developing countries. As migrant remittances are sent cumulatively over the years and not only by new migrants, remittances are able to be persistent over time. This is particularly true of remittances sent by circular migrants, migrant workers who move back and forth between their home and host countries in a temporary and repetitive manner. At the state level, countries with diversified migration destinations are likely to have more sustainable remittance flows.
From a macroeconomic perspective, there is no conclusive relationship between remittances and GDP growth. While remittances can boost aggregate demand and thereby spur economic activity, other research indicates that remittances may also have adverse macroeconomic impacts by increasing income inequality and reducing labour supply among recipient countries.
The World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements have developed international standards for remittance services.
The following article presents a comprehensive overview of countries ranked by the amount of remittances they receive from abroad. Remittances, defined as monetary transfers made by migrants to their home countries, play a crucial role in global economies and the livelihoods of individuals and families. In some countries, remittances account for more than 30% of the total economic output.
Ranking
Countries by remittances received and remittances received as a percent of GDP according to data by the World Bank.
Country Remittances received
(USD millions) Remittances as % of GDP Year
India 111,222 3.3 2022
Mexico 61,100 4.3 2022
Egypt 32,337 6.8 2022
France 30,044 1.1 2022
Pakistan 29,871 7.9 2022
China 26,106 0.1 2022
Bangladesh 21,503 4.7 2022
Nigeria 20,127 4.2 2022
Germany 19,288 0.5 2022
Vietnam 19,000 4.6 2022
Guatemala 18,112 19.1 2022
Ukraine 17,093 10.6 2022
Uzbekistan 16,736 20.8 2022
Belgium 13,438 2.3 2022
Morocco 11,168 8.3 2022
Italy 10,529 0.5 2022
Dominican Republic 10,278 9.0 2022
Indonesia 9,960 0.8 2022
Colombia 9,440 2.7 2022
Thailand 9,335 1.9 2022
Nepal 9,293 22.8 2022
Philippines 9,067 2.2 2022
Romania 8,660 2.9 2022
Honduras 8,485 26.8 2022
South Korea 7,825 0.5 2022
El Salvador 7,693 23.7 2022
United States 7,692 0.0 2022
Lebanon 6,841 27.5 2022
Poland 6,399 0.9 2022
Serbia 5,601 8.8 2022
Croatia 5,392 7.6 2022
Japan 5,384 0.1 2022
Tajikistan 5,346 50.9 2022
Brazil 4,969 0.3 2022
Ecuador 4,748 4.1 2022
Portugal 4,694 1.9 2022
Ghana 4,664 6.4 2022
Jordan 4,646 9.8 2022
Haiti 4,532 22.4 2022
Spain 4,268 0.3 2022
Czech Republic 4,152 1.4 2022
Georgia 4,100 16.7 2022
Kenya 4,091 3.6 2022
Palestine 4,049 21.2 2022
Azerbaijan 3,950 5.0 2022
United Kingdom 3,877 0.1 2022
Peru 3,707 1.5 2022
Jamaica 3,687 21.6 2022
Sri Lanka 3,600 4.8 2022
Hungary 3,589 2.0 2022
Sweden 3,521 0.6 2022
Russia 3,300 0.1 2022
Nicaragua 3,227 20.6 2022
Kyrgyzstan 3,050 27.9 2022
Senegal 2,711 9.8 2022
Austria 2,700 0.6 2022
Switzerland 2,620 0.3 2022
Cambodia 2,616 8.7 2022
Bosnia and Herzegovina 2,466 10.1 2022
Netherlands 2,370 0.2 2022
Luxembourg 2,208 2.7 2022
Slovakia 2,147 1.9 2022
Tunisia 2,084 4.5 2022
Zimbabwe 2,047 9.9 2022
Moldova 2,037 14.1 2022
Armenia 2,035 10.4 2022
Bulgaria 2,033 2.3 2022
Myanmar 1,900 3.2 2022
Algeria 1,760 0.9 2022
Albania 1,745 9.2 2022
Somalia 1,735 21.4 2022
Democratic Republic of the Congo 1,664 2.9 2022
Malaysia 1,640 0.4 2022
Kosovo 1,613 17.1 2022
Sudan 1,499 2.9 2022
Belarus 1,465 2.0 2022
Bolivia 1,459 3.4 2022
Latvia 1,333 3.2 2022
Australia 1,298 0.1 2022
Israel 1,289 0.2 2022
Argentina 1,258 0.2 2022
Denmark 1,250 0.3 2022
South Sudan 1,187 17.1 2022
Uganda 1,131 2.5 2022
Mali 1,094 5.8 2022
Qatar 1,032 0.4 2022
South Africa 873 0.2 2022
Canada 859 0.0 2022
Montenegro 830 13.6 2022
Lithuania 736 1.0 2022
Madagascar 718 4.8 2022
Turkey 694 0.1 2022
Slovenia 688 1.1 2022
New Zealand 677 0.3 2022
Togo 668 8.2 2022
Norway 629 0.1 2022
Iraq 624 0.2 2022
Costa Rica 621 0.9 2022
Gambia 615 27.1 2022
Tanzania 609 0.8 2022
Greece 601 0.3 2022
Panama 596 0.8 2022
Finland 594 0.2 2022
Paraguay 592 1.4 2022
Burkina Faso 589 3.1 2022
Lesotho 576 22.5 2022
Niger 534 3.8 2022
Cyprus 520 1.8 2022
Kazakhstan 481 0.2 2022
Rwanda 474 3.6 2022
Estonia 470 1.2 2022
Fiji 459 9.3 2022
North Macedonia 456 3.4 2022
Ireland 435 0.1 2022
Hong Kong 414 0.1 2022
Guyana 400 2.6 2022
Mongolia 399 2.4 2022
Cameroon 365 0.8 2022
Ivory Coast 360 0.5 2022
Liberia 351 8.8 2022
Afghanistan 350 2.1 2022
Ethiopia 327 0.3 2022
Cape Verde 313 13.5 2022
Mozambique 303 1.7 2022
Saudi Arabia 287 0.0 2022
Samoa 280 33.6 2022
Mauritius 274 2.1 2022
Malawi 267 2.0 2022
Comoros 250 20.1 2022
Zambia 243 0.8 2022
Malta 226 1.3 2022
Tonga 217 46.2 2022
Benin 209 1.2 2022
Laos 200 1.3 2022
Iceland 193 0.7 2022
Timor-Leste 185 5.8 2022
Sierra Leone 179 4.5 2022
Guinea-Bissau 178 10.9 2022
Trinidad and Tobago 172 0.6 2022
Mauritania 168 1.6 2022
Suriname 148 4.1 2022
Eswatini 148 3.0 2022
Belize 142 5.0 2022
Uruguay 125 0.2 2022
Bhutan 96 2.9 2022
Solomon Islands 81 5.1 2022
Vanuatu 75 7.6 2022
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 70 7.3 2022
Grenada 69 5.5 2022
Chile 69 0.0 2022
Botswana 56 0.3 2022
Saint Lucia 55 2.7 2022
Djibouti 55 1.6 2022
Namibia 54 0.4 2022
Dominica 52 8.5 2022
Burundi 50 1.6 2022
Andorra 47 1.6 2020
Guinea 41 0.2 2022
Oman 39 0.0 2022
Antigua and Barbuda 35 2.0 2022
Saint Kitts and Nevis 33 3.4 2022
Marshall Islands 30 10.7 2022
Kuwait 22 0.0 2022
Macau 17 0.1 2022
Kiribati 15 6.7 2022
Angola 14 0.0 2022
Republic of the Congo 13 0.1 2020
São Tomé and Príncipe 10 1.9 2022
Seychelles 9 0.6 2022
Nauru 7 5.0 2018
Maldives 5 0.1 2022
Gabon 4 0.0 2022
Tuvalu 3 4.2 2021
Papua New Guinea 2 0.0 2022
Palau 2 1.2 2022
Turkmenistan 1 0.0 2022
Brunei 1 0.0 2021
Jed McCaleb
Jed McCaleb is an American programmer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is the founder and CEO of aerospace startup Vast and a co-founder and the CTO of Stellar. Prior to co-founding Stellar, McCaleb founded and served as the CTO of the company Ripple until 2013. McCaleb is also known for creating the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange, and the peer-to-peer eDonkey and Overnet networks as well as the eDonkey2000 application.
As of March 2023, McCaleb is worth US$2.4 billion according to Forbes' Billionaires List.
Early life and education
McCaleb was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and attended the University of California, Berkeley. He eventually dropped out and moved to New York City.
Career
In 2000, McCaleb founded MetaMachine Inc. and released his eDonkey2000 application. Sam Yagan joined him in 2001 and served as CEO of the company. McCaleb served as the CTO of the company and continued to develop the peer-to-peer eDonkey network as well as the Overnet network and the eDonkey2000 application. At its height, the network grew to have over 4 million active users at any given time. In September 2006, the company reached a settlement with the RIAA and agreed that the company and its top executives would "immediately cease distributing eDonkey, eDonkey2000, Overnet and other software versions" and the company would pay $30 million to the RIAA to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits.
In 2007, he purchased the domain Mtgox.com with the intent to create a trading site for Magic: The Gathering cards. After moving on from his original idea, McCaleb repurposed the site in late 2010 as a bitcoin exchange that could process bitcoin-to-dollar trades. The website grew in popularity within months. McCaleb sold the company to Mark Karpelès in February 2011 and remained a minority owner in the company until its collapse in 2014.
In 2011, McCaleb began developing a digital currency in which transactions were verified by consensus among network members which became known as the Ripple protocol, which differs from the mining technique used in bitcoin. He recruited David Schwartz and secured an investment from Jesse Powell before adding Arthur Britto as the chief strategist. McCaleb recruited Chris Larsen to be CEO of the new company, which became known as Opencoin. He continued development of the Ripple protocol and its currency while securing investments before McCaleb left his active role with the company in July 2013.
In 2014, he co-founded the non-profit organization the Stellar Development Foundation with Joyce Kim to develop the Stellar open source protocol to allow cross-border monetary transactions including fiat and digital currencies. The organization debuted on July 31, 2014, and received $3 million loan from the technology company, Stripe. The organization originally based its payment network on the Ripple protocol McCaleb previously developed, but in 2015 adopted the Stellar Consensus Protocol. McCaleb serves as chief technology officer of Stellar.
In May 2017, McCaleb also launched Lightyear.io, a commercial endeavor building on the Stellar network. Lightyear facilitates Stellar, becoming a global payment and currency exchange initially directed at the developing world. In October 2017, Lightyear partnered with IBM to launch blockchain banking in the South Pacific using Stellar's lumen currency. In September 2018, McCaleb negotiated the merger of Lightyear and Chain.com, creating the new merged entity named InterStellar.
The New York Times named McCaleb one of the top 10 people leading the blockchain revolution in 2018.
In 2021, McCaleb founded aerospace company Vast. Vast's announced mission is to develop artificial gravity space stations. As of 2023, McCaleb is Vast's CEO and sole funder.
Philanthropy
McCaleb donated US$500,000 worth of XRP (at the time of donation) to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), and remains one of its largest donors, as well as joining its advisory board. In February 2018, McCaleb was announced as a new donor to the artificial intelligence research group OpenAI.
This is a list of major stock exchanges. Those futures exchanges that also offer trading in securities besides trading in futures contracts are listed both here and in the list of futures exchanges.
There are seventeen stock exchanges in the world that have a market capitalization of over US$1 trillion each. They are sometimes referred to as the "$1 Trillion Club". These exchanges accounted for 87% of global market capitalization in 2016. Some exchanges do include companies from outside the country where the exchange is located.
Major stock exchanges
Major stock exchange groups (the current top 20 by market capitalization) of issued shares of listed companies ("MIC" = market identifier code)
# Year Stock exchange MIC Region Market place Market cap
(USD tn) Monthly trade volume
(USD bn) Time zone Δ DST Open hours (local time) UTC, winter only
Open Close Lunch Open Close
1 2022 New York Stock Exchange XNYS United States New York City 22.7 1,452 EST/EDT −5:00 Mar–Nov 09:30 16:00 No 14:30 21:00
2 2022 Nasdaq XNAS United States New York City 18.0 1,262 EST/EDT −5:00 Mar–Nov 09:30 16:00 No 14:30 21:00
3 2022 Shanghai Stock Exchange XSHG China Shanghai 7.26 536 CST +8:00 09:30 15:00 11:30–13:00 01:30 07:00
4 2022 Euronext XAMS
XBRU
XMSM
XLIS
XMIL
XOSL
XPAR Europe Amsterdam
Brussels
Dublin
Lisbon
Milan
Oslo
Paris 6.62 174 CET/CEST +1:00 Mar–Oct 09:00 17:30 No 08:00 16:30
5 2022 Japan Exchange Group XJPX Japan Tokyo 5.65 JST +9:00 09:00 15:00 11:30–12:30 00:00 06:00
6 2022 Shenzhen Stock Exchange XSHE China Shenzhen 5.2 CST +8:00 09:30 15:00 11:30–13:00 01:30 07:00
7 2022 Hong Kong Stock Exchange XHKG Hong Kong Hong Kong 4.97 182 HKT +8:00 09:30 16:00 12:00–13:00 01:30 08:00
8 2022 Bombay Stock Exchange XBOM India Mumbai 3.5* IST +5:30 09:15 15:30 No 03:45 10:00
9 2022 London Stock Exchange XLON United Kingdom London 3.27 219 GMT/BST +0:00 Mar–Oct 08:00 16:30 No 08:00 16:30
10 2022 National Stock Exchange XNSE India Mumbai
3.2 481 IST +5:30 09:15 15:30 No 03:45 10:00
11 2022 Toronto Stock Exchange XTSE Canada Toronto 3.02 97 EST/EDT −5:00 Mar–Nov 09:30 16:00 No 14:30 21:00
12 2022 Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) XSAU Saudi Arabia Riyadh 2.7 AST +3:00 10:00 15:00 No 07:00 12:00
13 2022 SIX Swiss Exchange XSWX Switzerland Zurich 1.71 77 CET/CEST +1:00 Mar–Oct 09:00 17:30 No 08:00 16:30
14 2022 Deutsche Börse AG XFRA Germany Frankfurt 1.70 140 CET/CEST +1:00 Mar–Oct 08:00 (Eurex)
08:00 (floor)
09:00 (Xetra) 22:00 (Eurex)
20:00 (floor)
17:30 (Xetra) No 07:00 21:00
15 2022 Nasdaq Nordic and Baltic Exchanges Europe 1.67 72
Stock exchanges
16 2022 Australian Securities Exchange XASX Australia Sydney 1.55 AEST/AEDT +10:00 Oct–Apr 10:00 16:00 No 00:00 06:00
17 2022 Korea Exchange XKOS South Korea Seoul
Busan 1.49 277 KST +9:00 09:00 15:30 No 00:00 06:30
18 2022 Johannesburg Stock Exchange XJSE South Africa Johannesburg 1.36 29 SAST +2:00 09:00 17:00 No 07:00 15:00
19 2022 Taiwan Stock Exchange XTAI Taiwan Taipei 1.26 75 NST (Taiwan) +8:00 09:00 13:30 No 01:00 05:30
20 2022 Tehran Stock Exchange Iran Tehran 1.05
21 2022 B3 Brasil Bolsa Balcão BVMF Brazil São Paulo 0.85 BRT -3:00 10:00 17:55 No 13:00 20:55
* Note: "Δ" to UTC, as well as "Open (UTC)" and "Close (UTC)" columns contain valid data only for standard time in a given time zone. During daylight saving time period, the UTC times will be one hour less and Δs one hour more. **Applicable for non-closing auction session shares only.
Stock Exchanges in Oceania
Economy Exchange Location Founded Link Technology Operating MIC
Australia Australia APTEX Sydney 2008
Sydney Stock Exchange (formerly Asia Pacific Stock Exchange) Melbourne 1997 Nasdaq X-stream APXL
Australian Securities Exchange Sydney 1987 ASX Nasdaq Genium INET XASX
Chi-X Australia Melbourne 2008 CXA CHIA
National Stock Exchange of Australia Sydney 1937 NSX Nasdaq X-stream XNEC
Fiji Fiji South Pacific Stock Exchange Suva 1971 SPX XSPS
New Zealand New Zealand New Zealand Exchange Wellington 2002 NZX Nasdaq X-stream XNZE
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea PNGX Markets Limited Port Moresby 1999 PNGX Nasdaq Matching Engine XPOM
There are 29 exchanges in Africa, representing 38 nations' capital markets.
21 of the 29 stock exchanges in Africa are members of the African Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA). ASEA members are indicated below by an asterisk (*).
The Egyptian Exchange (EGX), founded in 1883, is the oldest stock exchange in Africa. One of the oldest bourses (exchanges) on the continent is the Casablanca Stock Exchange of Morocco, founded in 1929 and the JSE Limited in 1887. Today the Casablanca stock exchange, in Morocco is the 3rd largest exchange in Africa, while Johannesburg Stock Exchange is the first, and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) is the second.
There are several notable countries on the continent that do not have a stock exchange. The most notable is Ethiopia, although it does have a commodities exchange in Addis Ababa. In January 2021 a capital market bill was tabled to Ethiopian lawmakers that would establish a stock exchange through a public-private partnership.
List
Economy Exchange Location Founded Listings Link Technology
Algeria Algiers Stock Exchange Algiers 1997 5 SGBV
Angola Angola Debt and Stock Exchange Luanda 2016 Bodiva InfoTech Capizar
Botswana Botswana Stock Exchange* Gaborone 1989 44 BSE
Cameroon Douala Stock Exchange* Douala 2001 2 DSX
Cape Verde Bolsa de Valores de Cabo Verde* Praia 1998 BVC
Egypt Egyptian Exchange* Cairo, Alexandria 1883 265 EGX Nasdaq
Gabon Bourse des Valeurs Mobilières de l'Afrique Centrale Libreville 2003 BVMAC
Ghana Ghana Stock Exchange* Accra 1990 37 GSE InfoTech Capizar
Ivory Coast Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières* Abidjan 1998 39 BRVM
Kenya Nairobi Securities Exchange* Nairobi 1954 64 NSE
Lesotho Maseru Securities Exchange* Maseru 2016 MSM
Libya Libyan Stock Market* Tripoli 2007 7 LSM
Malawi Malawi Stock Exchange* Blantyre 1995 14 MSE InfoTech Capizar
Mauritius Stock Exchange of Mauritius Port Louis 1988 170 SEM Millenium Information Technology
Morocco Casablanca Stock Exchange* Casablanca 1929 81 Casa SE
Mozambique Bolsa de Valores de Moçambique* Maputo 1999 BVM
Namibia Namibian Stock Exchange* Windhoek 1992 47 NSX
Nigeria Abuja Securities and Commodities Exchange Abuja 1998 ASCE
Nigerian Exchange Group Lagos 1960 223 NGX Nasdaq
Rwanda Rwanda Stock Exchange Kigali 2011 10 RSE InfoTech Capizar
East Africa Exchange Kigali EAX
Seychelles Merj Exchange Limited Victoria 2012 48 MERJ
Somalia Somali Stock Exchange Mogadishu 2015 2 SSE
South Africa JSE Limited* Johannesburg 1887 388 JSE
A2X Markets* Johannesburg 2017 169 A2X
ZAR X Johannesburg 2016 7 ZARX
Equity Express Securities Exchange Johannesburg 2017 EESE
Cape Town Stock Exchange* Cape Town 2017 (2021) 9 CTSE
Sudan Khartoum Stock Exchange* Khartoum 1994 54 KSE
Eswatini Eswatini Stock Exchange* Mbabane 1990 10 ESE
Tanzania Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange* Dar es Salaam 1998 25 DSE
Tunisia Bourse de Tunis* Tunis 1969 56 BVMT
Uganda Uganda Securities Exchange* Kampala 1997 17 USE
ALTX East Africa Exchange Kampala 2013 3 ALTX
Zambia Agricultural Commodities Exchange of Zambia Lusaka 2007 ZAMACE
Lusaka Stock Exchange* Lusaka 1994 24 LuSE
Africa Digital Stock Exchange Ltd Zambia 2018 5 ADSEL
Zimbabwe Zimbabwe Stock Exchange* Harare 1948 64 ZSE InfoTech Capizar
Victoria Falls Stock Exchange Victoria Falls 2020 2 VFEX InfoTech Capizar
Finsec Harare 2019 1 FINSEC
This is a list of active stock exchanges in the Americas. Stock exchanges in Latin America (where Spanish and Portuguese prevail) use the term Bolsa de Valores, meaning "bag" or "purse" of "values". (compare Börse in German or bourse in French).
The Caribbean has one major regional stock exchange: the Eastern Caribbean Securities Exchange (ECSE), which serves Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The service area of the ECSE corresponds to the service area of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, with which it is associated.
Stock exchanges in the Americas
Region Country Exchange Location Founded Link Operating MIC
North America Canada Canada Canadian Securities Exchange Toronto 2004 CSE XCNQ
Montreal Exchange Montreal 1872 MX
NASDAQ Canada New York City 2000 Nasdaq Canada
Toronto Stock Exchange Toronto 1861 TSX
TSX Venture Exchange Calgary 2001 TSX
NEO Exchange Toronto 2015 Aequitas Neo
Mexico Mexico Bolsa Mexicana de Valores Mexico City 1886 BMV
BIVA - Bolsa Institucional de Valores Mexico City 2017 BIVA
United States United States BATS Global Markets Lenexa, Kansas 2005 BATS
BZX Exchange Chicago 2005 Cboe US Equities
BYX Exchange Chicago 2005 Cboe US Equities
Boston Options Exchange Boston 2002 BOX
C2 Options Exchange Chicago 2010 C2
Chicago Board Options Exchange Chicago 1973 CBOE
CBOE Stock Exchange- Ceased trading April 30, 2014 Chicago 1973 CBOE
Chicago Stock Exchange Chicago 1882 CHX
EDGA and EDGX Chicago 1998 Cboe US Equities
IEX New York City 2012 IEX
ISE and ISE Gemini New York City 2000/2013 ISE
Long Term Stock Exchange New York City 2019 LTSE
Members Exchange (MEMX) Jersey City 2019 MEMX
Miami International Securities Exchange Miami, Florida 2012 MIAX
NASDAQ New York City 1971 NASDAQ
NASDAQ OMX BX Boston 1834 BX
NASDAQ OMX PHLX Philadelphia 1790 PHLX
New York Stock Exchange New York City 1817 NYSE
NYSE Arca New York City 2006 NYSE Arca
NYSE American (formerly NYSE MKT and the American Stock Exchange) New York City 1908 NYSE American
Central America Costa Rica Costa Rica Bolsa Nacional de Valores San José 1976 BNV
El Salvador El Salvador Bolsa de Valores de El Salvador San Salvador 1992 BVES
Guatemala Guatemala Bolsa Nacional de Valores Guatemala City 1987 BVNSA
Honduras Honduras Bolsa Centroamericana de Valores Tegucigalpa 2005 BCV
Bolsa Honduras de Valores 1993 BHV
Nicaragua Nicaragua Bolsa de Valores de Nicaragua Managua 1990 BVDN
Panama Panama Bolsa de Valores de Panamá Panama City 1989 BVP
South America Argentina Argentina Buenos Aires Stock Exchange Buenos Aires 1854 BCBA
Mercado Abierto Electrónico Buenos Aires 1988 MAE
Rosario Stock Exchange Rosario 1884 BCR
Bolivia Bolivia Bolsa Boliviana de Valores La Paz 1990 BVB Archived 2017-09-16 at the Wayback Machine
Brazil Brazil B3 São Paulo 1890 B3
Rio de Janeiro Stock Exchange Rio de Janeiro 1845 BVRJ
Brazilian Mercantile and Futures Exchange São Paulo 1971 BM&F
Bolsa de Cereais e Mercardorias de Maringá Maringá 1982 BCMM
Bolsa de Valores Minas - Espírito Santo - Brasília Belo Horizonte 1976 BOVMESB
Chile Chile Santiago Stock Exchange (MILA) Santiago 1893 SSE
Bolsa Electronica de Chile Santiago 1989 BEC
Valparaíso Stock Exchange Valparaiso 1898 BOVALPO
Colombia Colombia Colombia Stock Exchange (MILA) Bogotá 1928 BVC
Ecuador Ecuador Bolsa de Valores de Guayaquil Guayaquil 1969 BVG
Bolsa de Valores de Quito Quito 1969 BVQ
Guyana Guyana Guyana Stock Exchange Georgetown 2003 GASCI
Paraguay Paraguay Bolsa de Valores de Asunción Asunción 1977 BVA
Peru Peru Lima Stock Exchange (MILA) Lima 1860 BVL
Suriname Suriname Suriname Stock Exchange Paramaribo 1994 SSE
Uruguay Uruguay Bolsa de Valores de Montevideo Montevideo 1867 BVM
Bolsa Electronica de Valores de Uruguay Montevideo 1993 BEVSA
Venezuela Venezuela Bolsa de Valores de Caracas Caracas 1947 BVC
Caribbean Anguilla Anguilla ECSE
Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda ECSE
The Bahamas Bahamas Bahamas Securities Exchange Nassau 1999 BISX
Barbados Barbados Barbados Stock Exchange Bridgetown 1987 BSE
Bermuda Bermuda Bermuda Stock Exchange Hamilton 1971 BSX
Cayman Islands Cayman Islands Cayman Islands Stock Exchange George Town 1997 CSX
Curaçao Curacao Dutch Caribbean Securities Exchange Willemstad 2010 DCSX Archived 2015-04-23 at the Wayback Machine
Dominica Dominica ECSE
Dominican Republic Dominican Republic Latin American International Financial Exchange Guayacanes proposed LAIFEX
Bolsa de Valores de la República Dominicana Santo Domingo 1991 BVRD
Grenada Grenada ECSE
Haiti Haiti Haitian Stock Exchange 2007 HSE Archived 2018-05-07 at the Wayback Machine
Jamaica Jamaica Jamaica Stock Exchange Kingston 1968 JSE
Montserrat Montserrat ECSE
Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Kitts and Nevis Eastern Caribbean Securities Exchange Basseterre, Saint Kitts 2001 ECSE
Saint Lucia Saint Lucia ECSE
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ECSE
Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange Port of Spain 1981 TTSE
This is a list of Asian stock exchanges.
In the Asian region, there are multiple stock exchanges. As per data from World Federation of Exchanges, below are top 10 selected in 2023:
Bombay Stock Exchange, India
Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan
Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Hong Kong
Shenzhen Stock Exchange, China
Shanghai Stock Exchange, China
National Stock Exchange, India
Korea Exchange, South Korea
Taiwan Stock Exchange, Taiwan
Singapore Exchange, Singapore
The Stock Exchange of Thailand, Thailand
Asian stock exchanges by UN subregion
List of Asian stock exchanges by UN subregion.
Central Asia
Economy Exchange Location Founded Listings Link Technology Operating MIC
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan Stock Exchange Almaty 1993 127 KASE
Astana International Exchange Nur-Sultan 2018 25 AIX Nasdaq Matching Engine AIXK
Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyz Stock Exchange (KSE) Bishkek 1994 KSE
Tajikistan Central Asian Stock Exchange Dushanbe 2015 CASE
Turkmenistan State Commodity and Raw Material Exchange of Turkmenistan Ashgabat 1994 SRCMET
Uzbekistan Tashkent Stock Exchange Tashkent 1994 104 UZSE
Eastern Asia
Economy Exchange Location Founded Listings Link
China China Beijing Stock Exchange Beijing 2021 88 (March 2022) BSE
Dalian Commodity Exchange Dalian 1993 DCE
China Financial Futures Exchange Shanghai 2006 CFFEX
Shanghai Futures Exchange Shanghai 1999 SHFE
Shanghai Metal Exchange Shanghai 1992 SHME
Shanghai Stock Exchange Shanghai 1990 2,061 (March 2022) SSE
Shenzhen Stock Exchange Shenzhen 1991 2,607 (March 2022) SZSE
Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange Zhengzhou 1990 ZCE
Hong Kong Hong Kong Hong Kong Stock Exchange Hong Kong 1891 2,538 (2020) SEHK
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Hong Kong 2000 aka Hang Seng HKEx
Japan Tokyo Stock Exchange Tokyo 1878 1,838 (Prime Market) + 1,452 (Standard Market) + 484 (Growth Market) + 56 (Tokyo Pro Market) as of July 31, 2022 JPX
JASDAQ Tokyo 1963 All 658 companies in the Standard subsection were transitioned into the Standard Market and all 36 companies in the Growth subsection were transitioned into the Growth Market. JPX
JASDAQ NEO Tokyo 2007 merged into JASDAQ in Oct. 2010
Mothers Tokyo 1999 All 424 companies were transitioned into the Growth Market. JPX
Tokyo Pro Market (formerly Tokyo AIM) Tokyo 2009 56 as of July 31, 2022 JPX
Osaka Exchange (formerly Osaka Securities Exchange) Osaka 1878 The cash equity market of Osaka Securities Exchange was integrated into Tokyo Stock Exchange on Jul. 16, 2013. JPX
Hercules (formerly Nasdaq Japan) Osaka 2000 merged into JASDAQ in Oct. 2010 (OSE) Hercules
Nagoya Stock Exchange Nagoya 1886 182 (First Section) + 80 (Second Section) as of Feb. 18, 2022 NSE
Centrex Nagoya 1999 14 as of Feb. 18, 2022 Centrex
Fukuoka Stock Exchange Fukuoka 1949 FSE(in Japanese)
Q-Board Fukuoka 2000 QB(in Japanese)
Sapporo Securities Exchange Sapporo 1949 SSE(in Japanese)
Ambitious Sapporo 2000 AMB(in Japanese)
Macau Macau Macao Financial Asset Exchange Macau 2018 MOX
Mongolia Mongolian Stock Exchange Ulaanbaatar 1991 MSE
Ulaanbaatar Securities Exchange Ulaanbaatar 2016
South Korea Chosun Stock Exchange
(formerly Chosun Exchange (1932)) Seoul 1943 Closed down by USAMGIK
Korea Exchange Busan 2005 2,354 (2020) KRX
Korea Stock Exchange Seoul 1956 Merged into Korea Exchange through KSE, KOSDAQ, KOFEX 1/27/2005
KOSDAQ Seoul 1996 1411 KOSDAQ
Taiwan Taiwan Stock Exchange Taipei 1961 898 (2020) TWSE
Taipei Exchange Taipei 1994 TPEx
Taiwan Futures Exchange Taipei 1998 TAIFEX
Northern Asia
Economy Exchange Location Founded Listings Link Technology Operating MIC
Russia Moscow Exchange (MOEX) Moscow 2011 Merge (1992 & 1995 before) 219 MOEX
Southeast Asia
Economy Exchange Location Founded Listings Link
ASEAN ASEAN Exchanges 2012
Cambodia Cambodia Securities Exchange Phnom Penh 2011 CSX
Indonesia Indonesia Stock Exchange Jakarta 1912 777 IDX
Jakarta Futures Exchange Jakarta 1999 JFX
Indonesia Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Jakarta 2009 ICDX
Laos Lao Securities Exchange Vientiane 2011 11 (2021) LSX
Malaysia Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur 1964 801 MYX
Malaysia Derivatives Exchange Kuala Lumpur 1980
MESDAQ Kuala Lumpur 1997
FUSANG Exchange Labuan 2015 FSC
Myanmar Myanmar Securities Exchange Centre Yangon 1996 MSEC
Yangon Stock Exchange Yangon 2015 YSX
Philippines Philippine Dealing Exchange Metro Manila 2005 PDEx
Philippine Stock Exchange Metro Manila 1927 329 (2020) PSE
Manila Commodity Exchange Metro Manila 2011 MCX
Singapore Singapore Exchange Singapore 1999 776 SGX
Thailand Stock Exchange of Thailand Bangkok 1975 614 (2023) SET
Market for Alternative Investment Bangkok 1999 205 (2023) MAI
Bond Electronic Exchange Bangkok 2003 BEX
AFET Bangkok 2004 AFEX
Thailand Futures Exchange Bangkok 2005 TFEX
Vietnam Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange Ho Chi Minh City 2000 396 (2018) HSX
Hanoi Stock Exchange Hanoi 2005 HNX
Southern Asia
Economy Exchange Location Founded Listings Link Technology
Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Stock Exchange Kabul 2009 AFX
Bangladesh Bangladesh Chittagong Stock Exchange Chittagong 1995 293(2020) CSE
Dhaka Stock Exchange Dhaka 1954 750 DSE Nasdaq X-stream INET
Bhutan Bhutan Royal Securities Exchange of Bhutan Thimphu 1993 20 RSEBL
India India Bombay Stock Exchange Mumbai 1875 5,034 BSE
Calcutta Stock Exchange Kolkata 1863 CSE
India International Exchange GIFT City, Ahmedabad 2017 INX
Indian Commodity Exchange Navi Mumbai 2017 ICEX
Multi Commodity Exchange Mumbai 2008 MCX
National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Mumbai 2003 NCDEX
National Stock Exchange of India Mumbai 1992 1300+ NSE
Iran Tehran Stock Exchange Tehran 1967 666 (2020) TSE
Iran Fara Bourse Tehran 2008 547 (2020) IFB
Iran Mercantile Exchange Tehran 2006 IME
Iranian Energy Exchange Tehran 2008 IRENEX
Maldives Maldives Maldives Stock Exchange Malé 2002 10 MSE
Nepal Nepal Nepal Stock Exchange Kathmandu 1993 333 NEPSE
Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Stock Exchange Karachi 2016 540 PSX
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka Colombo Stock Exchange Colombo 1896 296 CSE
Western Asia
Economy Exchange Location Founded Listings Link Technology Operating MIC
Bahrain Bahrain Stock Exchange Manama 1987 BSE Nasdaq X-stream
Iraq Iraq Stock Exchange Baghdad 2004 ISX Nasdaq
Israel Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Tel Aviv 1953 473 TASE
Jordan Amman Stock Exchange Amman 1999 ASE
Kuwait Boursa Kuwait Safat 1977 BK Nasdaq X-stream
Lebanon Beirut Stock Exchange Beirut 1920 BSE
Oman Muscat Securities Market Muscat 1988 MSM
Palestine Palestine Securities Exchange Nablus 1995 PSE Nasdaq
Qatar Doha Securities Market Doha 1997 DSM NYSE Euronext Universal Trading Platform
Saudi Arabia Tadawul Riyadh 2007 202 Tadawul Nasdaq X-stream INET
Syria Damascus Securities Exchange Damascus 2009 24 DSE
United Arab Emirates Abu Dhabi Securities Market Abu Dhabi 2000 73 ADSM
Dubai Financial Market Dubai 2000 178 DFM Nasdaq Matching Engine
NASDAQ Dubai Dubai 2005 NASDAQ Dubai
Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange Dubai 2005 DGCX Cinnober TRADExpress
In the European region, there are multiple stock exchanges among which five are considered major (as having a market cap of over US$1 trillion):
Euronext, which is a pan-European, Dutch-domiciled and France-headquartered stock exchange composed of seven market places in Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, and Portugal.
London Stock Exchange Group, which is a global stock exchange composed of the London Stock Exchange.
Deutsche Börse, which operates Europe's third largest stock exchange, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange/Xetra.
SIX Swiss Exchange, which operates Switzerland's major stock exchange.
Nasdaq Nordic, which is composed of Scandinavian and Baltic stock exchanges; including Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, with activity in Norway and the Faroe Islands.
List
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (August 2008)
Country Stock exchange City Founded Listings Technology Operating
MIC
Pan-European Euronext Brussels, Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Oslo, Milan 1602 (2000) 1300 OPTIQ
Nasdaq Nordic Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Reykjavík, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius 1620 (2003) Genium
Albania Tirana Stock Exchange Tirana 1996 4 XTIR
Armenia Armenia Securities Exchange Yerevan 2001 AMX
Austria Wiener Börse Vienna 1771 63 XWBO
Azerbaijan Baku Stock Exchange Baku 2000 27 BSE
Belarus Belarusian Currency and Stock Exchange Minsk 1998 BCSE
Bosnia and Herzegovina Sarajevo Stock Exchange Sarajevo 2001 XSSE
Banja Luka Stock Exchange Banja Luka 2001 XBLB
Bulgaria Bulgarian Stock Exchange Sofia 1914 XBUL
Channel Islands The International Stock Exchange Guernsey 2013 2000 XCIE
Croatia Zagreb Stock Exchange Zagreb 1907 45 Xetra XZAG
Cyprus Cyprus Stock Exchange Nicosia 1996 XCYS
Czech Republic Prague Stock Exchange Prague 1871 29 XPRA
Faroe Islands Faroese Securities Market Tórshavn 2004 VMFX
Georgia Georgian Stock Exchange Tbilisi 1999 261 XGSE
Germany Berliner Börse Berlin 1685 XBER
Börse Düsseldorf Düsseldorf XDUS
Hamburg Stock Exchange Hamburg/Hanover 1558 XHAM/
XHAN
Börse München München 1830 XMUN
Börse Stuttgart Stuttgart 1861 Xitaro XSTU
Frankfurt Stock Exchange Frankfurt 1585 492 XFRA
Gibraltar Gibraltar Stock Exchange Gibraltar 2014 GSXL
Greece Athens Stock Exchange Athens 1876 251 XATH
Hungary Budapest Stock Exchange Budapest 1864 61 Xetra XBUD
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan Stock Exchange Almaty 1993 XKAZ
Astana International Exchange Astana Nasdaq
Luxembourg Luxembourg Stock Exchange Luxembourg (city) 1927 OPTIQ XLUX
Malta Malta Stock Exchange Valletta 1992 XMAL
Moldova Moldova Stock Exchange Chişinău 1994 XMOL
Montenegro Montenegro Stock Exchange Podgorica 1993 XMNX
Netherlands Nxchange Amsterdam 2015 8 XNXC
NPEX The Hague 2009 NPEX
North Macedonia Macedonian Stock Exchange Skopje 1995 XMAE
Poland Warsaw Stock Exchange Warsaw 1817 449 UTP XWAR
Romania Bucharest Stock Exchange Bucharest 1882 83 XBSE
Russia Moscow Exchange Moscow 2013 (1992) MISX
Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange Saint Petersburg 1997 SPIM
Serbia Belgrade Stock Exchange Belgrade 1894 66 XBEL
Slovakia Bratislava Stock Exchange Bratislava 1991 XBRA
Slovenia Ljubljana Stock Exchange Ljubljana 1989 61 XLJU
Spain Bolsa de Valores de Barcelona Barcelona 1915 BMEX
Bolsa de Valores de Bilbao Bilbao 1890 BMEX
Bolsa de Madrid Madrid 1831 BMEX
Mercado Oficial Español de Futuros y Opciones Madrid 1989 BMEX
Bolsa de Valores de Valencia Valencia 1981 BMEX
Sweden Nasdaq First North Growth Market Stockholm 2008 288 FNSE
NGM Main Regulated Stockholm 2003 10 Elasticia XNGM
NGM Nordic SME Stockholm 2003 83 Elasticia NSME
Spotlight Stock Market Stockholm 1997 Elasticia XSAT
Switzerland SIX Swiss Exchange Zürich 1850 266 XSWX
BX Swiss Zürich 1888 18 Elasticia XBRN
Turkey Borsa Istanbul Istanbul 1866 417 XIST
Ukraine PFTS Ukraine Stock Exchange Kyiv 2002 PFTS
Ukrainian Exchange Kyiv 2008 88 XUAX
United Kingdom London Stock Exchange London 1571 2800 Millennium XLON