Portal:Money

The Money Portal

Euro coins and banknotes

Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value and sometimes, a standard of deferred payment.

Money was historically an emergent market phenomenon that possessed intrinsic value as a commodity; nearly all contemporary money systems are based on unbacked fiat money without use value. Its value is consequently derived by social convention, having been declared by a government or regulatory entity to be legal tender; that is, it must be accepted as a form of payment within the boundaries of the country, for "all debts, public and private", in the case of the United States dollar.

The money supply of a country comprises all currency in circulation (banknotes and coins currently issued) and, depending on the particular definition used, one or more types of bank money (the balances held in checking accounts, savings accounts, and other types of bank accounts). Bank money, whose value exists on the books of financial institutions and can be converted into physical notes or used for cashless payment, forms by far the largest part of broad money in developed countries. (Full article...)

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The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers (headquarters pictured), the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch), on September 15, 2008, is often considered the climax of the 2008 financial crisis.

The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC) or the Panic of 2008, was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes included excessive speculation on property values by both homeowners and financial institutions, leading to the 2000s United States housing bubble. This was exacerbated by predatory lending for subprime mortgages and by deficiencies in regulation. Cash out refinancings had fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined. The first phase of the crisis was the subprime mortgage crisis, which began in early 2007, as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to U.S. real estate, and a vast web of derivatives linked to those MBS, collapsed in value. A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which triggered a stock market crash and bank runs in several countries. The crisis exacerbated the Great Recession, a global recession that began in mid-2007, as well as the United States bear market of 2007–2009. It was also a contributor to the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis and the euro area crisis.

During the 1990s, the U.S. Congress had passed legislation that intended to expand affordable housing through looser financing rules, and in 1999, parts of the 1933 Banking Act (Glass–Steagall Act) were repealed, enabling institutions to mix low-risk operations, such as commercial banking and insurance, with higher-risk operations such as investment banking and proprietary trading. As the Federal Reserve ("Fed") lowered the federal funds rate from 2000 to 2003, institutions increasingly targeted low-income homebuyers, largely belonging to racial minorities, with high-risk loans; this development went unattended by regulators. As interest rates rose from 2004 to 2006, the cost of mortgages rose and the demand for housing fell; in early 2007, as more U.S. subprime mortgage holders began defaulting on their repayments, lenders went bankrupt, culminating in the bankruptcy of New Century Financial in April. As demand and prices continued to fall, the financial contagion spread to global credit markets by August 2007, and central banks began injecting liquidity. In March 2008, Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest U.S. investment bank, was sold to JPMorgan Chase in a "fire sale" backed by Fed financing. (Full article...)

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The mark was a currency or unit of account in many states. It is named for the mark unit of weight. The word mark comes from a merging of three Germanic words, Latinised in 9th-century post-classical Latin as marca, marcha, marha or marcus. It was a measure of weight mainly for gold and silver, commonly used throughout Europe and often equivalent to 8 troy ounces (250 g). Considerable variations, however, occurred throughout the Middle Ages.

As of 2022^[update] the only circulating currency named "mark" is the Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark. (Full article...)

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... that American first lady Lou Henry Hoover secretly sent money to families in need during the Great Depression?
... that a TV station in Windsor, Ontario, was spared from closure even though it lost money for ten consecutive years?
... that the song "Money" by the Drums was certified gold by the RIAA over a decade after its initial release?
... that the first women's dormitory built at Hampton University was partially paid for with money collected by the school's choir in tours led by Thomas P. Fenner?
... that a nuclear reactor was nearly built at the New York Hall of Science, but the money for the institution instead went to Yankee Stadium?
... that medievalist Edward Rand rang the doorbell of Harvard president Charles William Eliot and asked him: "I would like to go to Harvard; do you have any money?"
... that in the span of three days, a Florida man was approved by bankruptcy courts to buy TV stations in Roanoke and Lynchburg, Virginia, and then arrested on charges of laundering millions in drug money?
... that Russian money, known as qiang tie by locals, was used as legal currency in some regions of China for decades?

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The following are images from various currency-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Tibetan undated silver tangka, struck in 1953/54, obverse. (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 2Euro banknotes and coins (from Money)
Image 3Song Dynasty Jiaozi, the world's earliest paper money (from Money)
Image 4A 640 BC one-third stater electrum coin from Lydia. According to Herodotus, the Lydians were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coins. It is thought by modern scholars that these first stamped coins were minted around 650 to 600 BC. (from Money)
Image 5A hoard of mostly Mauryan punch-marked coins (from Punch-marked coins)
Image 6Tibetan silver tangka with Ranjana (Lantsa) script, dated 15-28 (= AD 1894), reverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 7Tibetan "gaden" Tangka, undated (ca. AD 1840), obverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 8Tibetan undated silver tangka (2nd half of 18th century) with eight times the syllable "dza" in vartula script, reverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 9Huizi currency, issued in 1160 (from Money)
Image 10A check, used as a means of converting funds in a demand deposit to cash (from Money)
Image 11Punch-marked coins discovered from Chandraketugarh. (from Punch-marked coins)
Image 12President J. K. Paasikivi illustrated in a former Finnish 10 mark banknote from 1980 (from Money)
Image 13Tibetan undated silver tangka (2nd half of 18th century) with eight times the syllable "dza" in vartula script, obverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 14Paper money from different countries (from Money)
Image 15Printing paper money at a printing press in Perm (from Money)
Image 16Tibetan "gaden" Tangka, undated (ca. AD 1840), reverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 17Undated Kelzang tangka (1910), obverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 18Banknotes of different currencies with a face value of 5000 (from Money)
Image 19Gold coins are an example of legal tender that are traded for their intrinsic value, rather than their face value. (from Money)
Image 20“Babyal Hoard” type, of the Kuru Janapada (350 - 315 BCE) (from Punch-marked coins)
Image 21A 1914 British gold sovereign (from Money)
Image 22Tibetan kong par tangka, dated 13-45 (= AD 1791), reverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 23A person counts a bundle of different Swedish banknotes. (from Money)
Image 24Sino Tibetan silver tangka, dated 58th year of Qian Long era, reverse. Weight 5.57 g. Diameter: 30 mm (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 25Tenga of Muhammad Khudayar Khan, struck at the Kokand mint, dated 1862–1863 (from Kokand tenga)
Image 26Tibetan kong par tangka, dated 13-45 (= AD 1791), obverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 27Money Base, M1 and M2 in the U.S. from 1981 to 2012 (from Money)
Image 28Sino Tibetan silver tangka, dated 58th year of Qian Long era, obverse. Weight 5.57 g. Diameter: 30 mm (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 29Ancient Jewish coin, engraved menorah, from the Hasmoneon kingdom 37-40 BCE (from Money)
Image 30Undated Kelzang tangka (1910), reverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 31US dollar banknotes (from Money)
Image 32"Bent bar" of the Gandhara Janapda unearthed with Achaemenid and Greek coins, Gandhara, c.350 BC. (from Punch-marked coins)
Image 33Tibetan undated silver tangka, struck in 1953/54, reverse. (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 34Tibetan silver tangka with Ranjana (Lantsa) script, dated 15-28 (= AD 1894), obverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 35Silver, ½ Karshapana coin, “Babyal Hoard” type, of the Kuru Janapada (450 BC - 315 BC) (from Punch-marked coins)

In the news

3 September 2025 – Odebrecht case: A Peruvian court sentences former president Alejandro Toledo to 13 years and four months in prison for laundering S/18 million (US$5.1 million) in bribes from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht through offshore accounts to purchase and refinance properties in Lima, with the sentence to run concurrently with his earlier conviction for accepting S/124 million ($35 million) in kickbacks. (Reuters)
28 August 2025 –: Brazilian federal police and the taxation authority conduct nationwide raids targeting organized crime schemes in the energy sector, investigating money laundering and fraud involving more than R$10 billion (US$1.9 billion) in imports, R$52 billion (US$9.7 billion) in domestic sales, and R$46 billion (US$8.6 billion) in related financial transactions. (Reuters)