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2019 BRASS Preconference: Guardians of the (Financial) Galaxy: Glossary and Supplemental Materials

Financial Data websites mentioned at Pre-Conference

FinTech and Banking glossary

  • Investor.gov glossary 
  • U.S. Department of the Treasury Finance Data Directory
  • Data.gov: Finance hundreds of free data sets on financial services, including banking, lending, retirement, investments, and insurance. 
  • DataLumos: an ICPSR archive for valuable government data resources. 
  • FinTech: used to describe new tech that seeks to improve and automate the delivery and use of financial services. ​​​
  • Bitcoin: a digital currency created in January 2009. Virtual currency. In 2015, the CFTC determined virtual currency was a "commodity" subject to oversight under its authority under the Commodity Exchange Act. 
  • Blockchain: digital information (the “block”) stored in a public database (the “chain”).
  • Consumer Data Protection Act: This bill amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act to direct a consumer reporting agency experiencing a data breach to: (1) notify the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), other appropriate law enforcement agencies, and affected individuals; (2) provide affected individuals with free credit freezes and credit monitoring services; and (3) establish a consumer assistance unit.
  • Crowdfunding: an evolving method of raising money via the Internet to fund a variety of projects.
  • Cryptocurrency: a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. Not backed by a government; not the same legal protections. Value changes constantly. 
  • Cryptojacking: when scammers use your computer or smartphone’s processing power to “mine” cryptocurrency for their own benefit, and without your permission.
  • ISO International Standards: The International Organization for Standardization or ISO is an international nongovernmental organization made up of national standards bodies; it develops and publishes a wide range of standards.
  • Leveraged loans: a commercial loan to a high-yield company provided by a group of lenders. 
  • Metadata: Data about data or structured information that describes, explains, and/or locates an electronic file.  For every piece of data generated,  there is a native record containing important metadata. Metadata enables people to search, define, reuse, and govern data consumed across the company and throughout the technology environment. Gartner has expanded their definition: "Metadata is information regarding the characteristics of any artifact, such as its name, location, perceived importance, quality or value to the enterprise, and its relationships to other artifacts that an enterprise has deemed worth managing.”
  • Smart Contracts: a term used to describe computer code that automatically executes all or parts of an agreement and is stored on a blockchain-based platform.

Government Acronyms

Organizations

  • CFPB - Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
  • CFTC - Commodities Futures Trading Commission
  • FDIC - Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
  • FED - Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the independent Federal Reserve Banks
  • FFIEC - Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council
  • FINRA - Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
  • FTC - Federal Trade Commission
  • NCUA - National Credit Union Association
  • OCC - Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
  • SEC - Securities and Exchange Commission

Authorities

  • FIRREA - Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act 

The material in this guide was compiled by BRASS members and reflects information that was accurate at the time it was collected.

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