Automatic reconciliation is the practice of matching financial records across systems using software rather than manual review. Rules and matching logic compare transactions automatically, clear the matches that meet set criteria, and flag only genuine exceptions for a person to look at.

Balance reconciliation is the process of confirming that the actual balance in an account matches the expected balance, and that it is sufficient to cover any planned payments. It works at the level of the total figure, not individual transactions, and is especially important for accounts that hold funds on behalf of someone else.

Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) is a model where a licensed bank or financial institution exposes its core banking capabilities through APIs, allowing non-bank companies to embed accounts, payments, cards, and other financial products into their own products without holding a banking license themselves.

Batch payments are multiple transactions of the same type grouped into a single file and processed together at a set interval, rather than one at a time. A business submits the batch to a bank or processor, and every payment in it settles together, usually at the end of a defined processing window.

The Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) is Circle's permissionless protocol for moving native USDC between blockchains. It burns USDC on the source chain and mints an equivalent amount on the destination chain, verified by Circle's attestation service. No wrapped tokens are created and no funds are locked in a bridge contract.

A cross-chain bridge is a protocol that enables the transfer of assets, data, or messages between two independent blockchain networks. Because blockchains operate as isolated systems with their own rules and validators, bridges are the mechanism that allows value to move from one chain to another.

An E-Money Token (EMT) is a type of crypto-asset defined under MiCA that maintains a stable value by referencing a single official fiat currency. Both EUR-pegged and USD-pegged stablecoins qualify as EMTs when offered to EU users. Only banks and authorized e-money institutions can issue them.

FedGlobal ACH is a Federal Reserve service that extends the domestic ACH network to cross-border payments, mainly to Mexico and Panama. The Federal Reserve announced in November 2025 that the service will be fully discontinued by the end of 2026 and is no longer open to new sign-ups.

FX risk, also called currency risk or foreign exchange risk, is the potential for financial loss caused by changes in exchange rates between two currencies. It affects any business that sends, receives, or holds money in a currency other than its home currency.

Gas fees are the payments users make to have a transaction processed and recorded on a blockchain. They are calculated as the amount of computational work a transaction requires, multiplied by the price per unit of that work, and they rise and fall based on how busy the network is.

An identity verification API is a software tool that lets a business confirm a person's identity automatically, using document scans, biometric checks, and database lookups. It is the technical layer that performs the checks a KYC program requires, returning a pass, fail, or review result in seconds.

Interbank settlement is the process banks use to finalize payment obligations between each other, usually in central bank money. It is the last step in a payment's journey, where the actual transfer of value happens between the sending bank and the receiving bank.

ISO 20022 is an open global standard for financial messaging that defines how banks, payment networks, and financial institutions exchange payment data. It replaced legacy MT formats across most major payment systems in 2023 to 2025, bringing richer, more structured data to cross-border payments, reporting, and settlement.

KYB, short for Know Your Business, is the due diligence process a regulated entity performs to verify that a business is legitimately registered and to identify the individuals who ultimately own or control it. It applies the same anti-money laundering logic as KYC, but to a legal entity first, then traces through to the real people behind it.

KYT, short for Know Your Transaction, is the practice of monitoring blockchain transactions in real time to assess risk, detect suspicious activity, and screen for exposure to sanctioned addresses or illicit actors. It is the crypto-native version of transaction monitoring, built to read on-chain data that traditional AML software cannot interpret.

A ledger API is the programmatic interface used to interact with a financial ledger: posting transactions, querying balances, creating account structures, and running reconciliations. It is the integration surface that sits on top of the underlying ledger infrastructure, allowing applications to record and retrieve financial data without managing the ledger's internals directly.

A meta transaction is a blockchain transaction that a user signs off-chain, but a third party called a relayer actually submits and pays the gas for. It lets someone interact with a blockchain without holding the network's native token, which is the mechanism behind most "gasless" crypto experiences.

MiCA, short for Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, is the European Union's comprehensive legal framework for crypto-assets. It covers stablecoin issuance, crypto-asset service provider licensing, and investor protection rules across all 27 EU member states under a single unified rulebook.

Nostro and vostro are two names for the same correspondent bank account, viewed from opposite sides of the relationship. A nostro account is how a bank records money it holds at a foreign bank. A vostro account is how that foreign bank records the same money on its own books.

Open banking is a model where banks share customer account data and let third parties initiate payments through secure, regulated APIs, with the customer's consent. It replaces older methods like screen scraping and lets fintech apps read balances, verify accounts, and move money directly from a bank account.

Settlement finality is the point at which a payment or transfer becomes legally irrevocable and unconditional, meaning no party can reverse it, even if one side later enters bankruptcy. It is a legal concept as much as a technical one, and the exact moment it occurs varies by payment rail and jurisdiction.

A stablecoin depeg is when a stablecoin's market price moves away from its target value, almost always $1. Depegs range from brief, minor deviations corrected by arbitrage within minutes, to catastrophic collapses where the peg is never recovered and billions in value are destroyed.

Stablecoin redemption is the process of returning a stablecoin to its issuer and receiving the reference currency in exchange, typically one US dollar per token. The issuer burns the returned tokens, reducing the total supply. Redemption is usually restricted to institutional accounts, while most users buy and sell on secondary markets instead.

Stablecoin settlement is the process of finalizing a financial obligation using a stablecoin as the settlement asset, instead of moving funds through correspondent banks or clearing houses. It lets institutions settle transactions instantly, 24 hours a day, rather than waiting on banking hours and multi-day clearing cycles.

A subsidiary ledger, or subledger, is a detailed set of accounts that supports a single control account in the general ledger. It records individual transactions, such as each customer's invoices and payments, while the general ledger holds only the summarized total.

The Travel Rule, formally FATF Recommendation 16, requires Virtual Asset Service Providers to collect and transmit identifying information about the sender and recipient of crypto transactions above a set threshold. It extends the same information-sharing obligations that have applied to wire transfers since the 1990s to digital asset transfers between VASPs.

A UETR, or Unique End-to-End Transaction Reference, is a 36-character code assigned to a SWIFT payment when it is created. It stays the same through every bank the payment passes through, which is what makes it possible to track the payment from start to finish.

Wallet as a Service (WaaS) is infrastructure, delivered through an API or SDK, that lets a business offer crypto wallets to its users without building key management, blockchain connectivity, and custody from scratch. A WaaS provider runs the cryptographic and custody layer; the business integrates and focuses on its own product.

Wallet screening, also called address screening, is the process of checking a blockchain wallet address against risk data to assess its exposure to illicit activity. It produces a point-in-time risk score for a specific address, based on direct and indirect connections to sanctioned entities, scams, and other high-risk activity.