interest (2024)

Interest is the price paid for the use of credit or money. It may be expressed either in terms of money or as a rate of payment. The term interest also refers to the income that comes from contractual promises from others to pay sums in the future. Such financial transactions usually involve two parties: the lender and the borrower. For example, if a person buys a bond from the government, the person is actually lending an amount of money to the government. At the end of the bond’s period of maturity, the government returns the money with interest. Similarly, a person putting money into a savings account is lending the bank money, and the bank pays for the loan by paying interest into the savings account.

When the fee charged for borrowing money is a fixed yearly percentage of the amount borrowed, it is called simple interest. The amount borrowed is called the principal, or the present value of the transaction. The amount owed at the end of the lending period is known as the future value of the principal. The value of the principal is equal to the principal plus the simple interest.

If a person borrows $100 and pays back the same amount a year later, no interest income has been generated. However, if the person promises to pay back the loan plus an additional $5 at the end of the year, then the lender will receive interest of $5. The future value of the principal will be $105. The percent of the principal charged as interest, called the interest rate, is 5%. The simple interest amount is found by multiplying the principal by the interest rate and by the time that the principal is held.

The amount of interest always depends upon the length of time that the principal is held. In many financial transactions, borrowed money is repaid in increments of a year. If the principals and interest rates are the same, the simple interest for a two-year loan will be two times the interest for a one-year loan. Similarly, the simple interest for a six-month loan will be half of the interest for a one-year loan.

The concepts discussed so far can be combined to determine the future value of a loan of $2,000 for six months and at the rate of 10% a year, or 0.1. Since the interest rate is for one year, the time of the loan is given as a fraction of a year (⁶/₁₂, or ¹/₂):

For many financial transactions, interest earned over a period of time is added to the principal, and the calculation of interest for the next period is based on the total. This method, called compounding of interest, enables the interest itself to earn interest.

The time interval between successive additions of interest is called a conversion period. If this time interval is one year, interest is said to be compounded, or converted, annually. Similarly, six-month intervals apply to interest compounded semiannually; three-month intervals, interest compounded quarterly; one-month intervals, interest compounded monthly; one-week intervals, interest compounded weekly; one-day intervals, interest compounded daily.

For transactions involving compound interest, the interest rate for each period is related to the annual rate, or nominal rate, and the number of conversion periods. The interest rate for each conversion period is equal to the nominal rate divided by the number of conversion periods. For example, if a nominal rate of 10% is compounded semiannually, the equivalent interest rate for each period is 10% divided by 2, or 5%.

Simple interest and interest compounded semiannually will produce different results even if the same principal and nominal interest rate are applied. For example, suppose a person goes to the bank and opens a simple-interest savings account with $2,000 and does not deposit any more money or withdraw any money over the period of a year. If the account is set up with a 10% nominal rate, the bank will pay $2,000 (0.10) (1), or $200, at the end of one year. Thus, the year-end balance in the account will be $2,200.

On the other hand, if the same amount of money is deposited into an account with a 10% nominal rate compounded semiannually, the interest earned at the end of one year will be more than $200. A 10% nominal rate compounded semiannually means that every six months the account will be credited at the rate of 5%. At the end of the first six-month conversion period, an interest of $2,000 (0.05), or $100, will be added to the principal. The principal for the next six-month period will be $2,100. At the end of the year, the account will be credited with $2,100 (0.05), or $105. Thus, the year-end balance in the account will be $2,205.

If the same amount of money was deposited into a bank that offered the same nominal rate of 10% compounded quarterly, instead of semiannually, the year-end balance would be even greater. In this case, the interest would be added to the principal every three months, or four times a year. The interest rate for each quarter would be 10% divided by 4, 2.5% or 0.025. The interest would accumulate as follows:

This example illustrates an important point about compound interest: the more frequent the compounding, the greater the total interest.

When different nominal interest rates are offered, it is sometimes difficult to tell which compound interest procedure will produce the greater interest. For example, is it better to invest at 5% compounded monthly or 5¹/₄% compounded semiannually? The notion of effective rate of interest, or annual yield, was devised to facilitate such comparisons. Effective rate of interest is the simple interest rate that produces the same yearly interest as that found by using the compound interest procedure. In the United States, the law requires that effective interest rates appear on all financial contracts.

It is a common practice for a lender to subtract the interest due before giving the money to the borrower. The interest subtracted is called the bank discount. The borrower receives the difference between the amount borrowed and the bank discount. This is called the proceeds. Many student loans for college expenses are issued with bank discounting, as are loans that are made without collateral. A bank discount is estimated in much the same way as simple interest. It is based on the face amount of the loan rather than the actual amount received.

To borrow money with a bank discount, the borrower is often asked to sign a promissory note, a written promise to pay a specified sum of money to the lender on a certain date or on demand. Thus, a person borrowing $2,000 from the bank for one year at a 10% bank discount will sign a $2,000 one-year promissory note. The simple discount will be $2,000 (0.10) (1), or $200. The discount will be subtracted from the actual amount on the note, so the borrower will receive $1,800. At the end of the one-year loan period, the borrower will pay back $2,000.