Line of Credit is an understanding whereby a bank or a financial institution extends a specified amount of unsecured credit to a specified borrower for a specified time period. The borrower can draw down on the line of credit at any time, as long as he or she does not exceed the maximum set in the agreement.
According to Wikipedia a line of credit is any credit source extended to a government, business or individual by a bank or other financial institution. A line of credit may take several forms, such as overdraft protection, demand loan, special purpose, export packing credit, term loan, discounting, purchase of commercial bills, traditional revolving credit card account, etc. It is effectively a bank account that can readily be tapped at the borrower's discretion. Interest is paid only on money actually withdrawn. (However, the borrower may be required to pay an unused line fee, often an annualized percentage fee on the money not withdrawn.) Lines of credit can be secured by collateral, or may be unsecured.
Where to get Line of Credit
Lines of credit are often extended by banks, financial institutions and other licensed consumer lenders to creditworthy customers (though certain special-purpose lines of credit may not have creditworthiness requirements) to address liquidity problems; such a line of credit is often called a personal line of credit. The term is also used to mean the credit limit of a customer, that is, the maximum amount of credit a customer is allowed.
Why Line of Credit
Currently the tough economic times has given birth to a new credit product, these economic trends are due to the impact the economy has had on individuals in general but specifically for disadvantaged individuals due to special circumstances, affiliations, gender, or external bias. Lenders of many types have explored providing targeted services to select groups. However, most successful attempts have been done by consumer lending entities (licensed and unlicensed) that are generally filling a niche credit service abandoned by the traditional providers. These are credit services that based on one or more pre-defined criteria, may qualify a borrower for their credit services.
Advantages of Line of Credit (LOC)
The advantage of a line of credit over a regular loan is that interest is not usually charged on the part of the line of credit that is unused, and the borrower can draw on the line of credit at any time that he or she needs to. Depending on the agreement with the financial institution, the line of credit may be classified as a demand loan, which means that any outstanding balance will have to be paid immediately at the financial institution's request.
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