Effective Interest Rate
The term effective interest rate is the actual return from a savings account or any investment where you pay interest when considering the effects of compounding costs over time. Through an effective interest rate, you can fully and correctly determine the real percentage rate that you own on a loan’s interest, a credit card, or any other debt type.
An effective interest rate is also referred to as an effective annual interest rate, the annual equivalent rate, or the effective rate.
The Effective Interest Rate Formula:
With:
i = Nominal Interest Rate
n = Number of periods
What does the Effective Interest Rate Mean?
When you look at loans, the way through which they are advertised will give you two types of information. Firstly, we’ll have the nominal interest rate, which doesn’t consider the effects compounding interest or fees have on the financial product. Secondly, and the one we focus on now, the effective interest rate, which gives you the real return paid on savings of the actual cost of a loan because it does take into account the effect fees and compounding interest have on the financial product.
For that exact reason, knowing and understanding what the effective interest rate means is important. Through a proper understanding of the effective interest rate, you can compare offers more accurately to make an informed decision based on the result.
How to Find the Effective Interest Rate?
To adequately explain how to find the effective interest rate from any financial product’s promotional information, we will look at two examples. Firstly, we’ll have Loan A that has a 5% interest rate that’s compounded monthly. Secondly, we’ll have Loan B with a 5.1% interest rate that’s compounded bi-annually.
Both of these loans are advertised with their nominal interest rate. Remember, this is the one that doesn’t take into account the effects fees and compounding interest has on the loan. To calculate the effective interest rate, we’ll use the formula shown above.
While the nominal interest rate for Loan A is smaller than that of Loan B’s, the effective interest rate from Loan B is lower than that of Loan A’s. This occurs because Loan B has fewer compounding times over the course of a year.
Popular Real Estate Terms
Individual who by his expertise, education, and experience prepares syndication reports. ...
The term amenity value refers to the worth or pleasant feeling added by using or seeing something. The amenity value definition would be the value that an individual amenity adds to the ...
Primary horizontal support for a structure such as a house. It may be a large piece of wood, stone, iron, or other material that lies across the walls, and serves as support of the ...
The equity in property because of work in it by the buyer or holder which directly increases its value. ...
Legal proceeding whereby a person's property is attached and used to pay an obligation. The employer may withhold part of the employee's salary to the court until the debt has been paid. ...
The angle of a roof in relation to its horizontal axis expressed as a ratio of inches (cmm) per foot of horizontal distance. The sloping of ground, such as sloping ground away from the ...
A partition or wall that provides no support to the structure in which it is located. For example, a nonbearing partition or wall does not support any floors above it. A partition which ...
(1) Retaining wall constructed along water with solid earth behind it. It extends the effective shoreline and protects the land from tidal action. (2) That portion of a wall located beneath ...
Claim made by a federal or local government agency against a taxpayer's property for delinquent or overdue taxes. The tax lien is effected through tax assessment, demand, and failure to ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.