Direct A general word for the way in which financial services are sold by telephone or over the internet rather than face-to-face by an agent (in insurance) or over the counter (in banking), as in “direct insurance” or “direct banking”. There has been rapid growth in the direct selling of financial services in recent years. This has enabled many firms to cut out middlemen, with the result that agents’ commissions have been greatly reduced. Hopes that intermediaries of any sort could be cut out by using the internet led to the launch of numerous such services during the 集運 美國集運 日本集運 女生的形體美在很大的程度上 まだ闇属性を使えるもう一人の可能性もあるが dotcom boom.
Many have since closed or merged with others, but the idea lives on and is increasingly popular with many consumers. Direct debit An instruction from a bank’s customer asking the bank regularly to debit his or her account with the amount demanded by a named creditor. Direct debits are designed to make it easy to pay regular but varying bills (like those of utilities). Dirty price A price for a bond which includes the amount of interest that has accrued on the bond since the date of the last interest payment. (See also clean price.) Discount As a verb it means to sell at a reduced price; as a noun it refers to the reduction in price itself. A cash discount is a reduction in price given to someone who pays immediately for goods in cash or a cash equivalent. A trade discount is a reduction in price given to someone who is in the same trade as the vendor – for example, by a wholesaler of garments to a fashion boutique. When a bill is sold for a discount to its face value, the discount represents the interest forgone between the time of the sale and the date that the bill matures. A bond trading at less than 80% of its par value is said to be trading at a deep discount. This usually means that the coupon (that is, rate of interest) is far below the market rate or the quality of the bond’s credit is in question. Discount rate The rate at which a central bank discounts government bonds and other first-class debt instruments to commercial banks; or the rate at which central banks lend to commercial banks, using government bills as collateral. In securities markets, it is also the rate of interest used to determine the present value of a stream of future income. In theory, the rate should rise the riskier the source of the stream of income becomes. Assume the rate is 10%; then ask what value today will produce $1,000 in a year’s time at that rate. The answer is $909 ($1,000 divided by 1.1, which is the figure you get if you compound 1 at the rate of 10% for a year). The method is used by analysts to compare one income stream with another, or to weigh up the attractions of different types of investment. Discount window A facility provided by central banks whereby commercial banks can lodge their surplus reserves or top up their reserves against the security of their top-quality assets. Discretionary account An account that an investor has with a broker which gives the broker discretion to buy or sell securities on behalf of the investor without consultation. This discretion usually applies within certain pre-agreed limits and is reviewed regularly. Disintermediation The exclusion of financial intermediaries from the process of allocating savings. For example, a company may choose to raise equity, or issue bonds, directly in the financial markets, rather than borrow from a bank. A government may choose to raise revenue by issuing attractive savings bonds that are sold directly to the public, rather than by the traditional method of selling Treasury bonds to banks. To some extent disintermediation is a function of the economic cycle. Market rates generally move ahead of banks’ interest rates. So when rates are rising, investors prefer to put their money directly into the markets, and borrowers are happy to pay marginally more for easy access to this money. When rates are falling, bank rates lag behind market rates. Investors then switch their money out of the markets and into financial institutions. The opportunities for disintermediation can be expected to increase the wider the variety of sophisticated instruments is made available in the market