A floating interest rate, also known as a variable or adjustable rate, refers to any type of

debt Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money or other agreed-upon value to another party, the creditor. Debt is a deferred payment, or series of payments, which differentiates it from an immediate purchase. The ...

instrument, such as a

loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that ...

bond Bond or bonds may refer to: Common meanings * Bond (finance), a type of debt security * Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States * Chemical bond, the attraction of atoms, ions or molecules to form chemical ...

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any ...

, or credit, that does not have a fixed rate of

interest In finance and economics, interest is payment from a borrower or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distin ...

over the life of the instrument. Floating interest rates typically change based on a

reference rate A reference rate is a rate that determines pay-offs in a financial contract and that is outside the control of the parties to the contract. It is often some form of LIBOR rate, but it can take many forms, such as a consumer price index, a house pri ...

(a benchmark of any financial factor, such as the Consumer Price Index). One of the most common reference rates to use as the basis for applying floating interest rates is the London Inter-bank Offered Rate, or

LIBOR The London Inter-Bank Offered Rate is an interest-rate average calculated from estimates submitted by the leading banks in London. Each bank estimates what it would be charged were it to borrow from other banks. The resulting average rate is u ...

(the rates at which large banks lend to each other). The rate for such debt will usually be referred to as a spread or

margin Margin may refer to: Physical or graphical edges * Margin (typography), the white space that surrounds the content of a page *Continental margin, the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust *Leaf ...

over the base rate: for example, a five-year loan may be priced at the six-month LIBOR + 2.50%. At the end of each six-month period, the rate for the following period will be based on the LIBOR at that point (the reset date), plus the spread. The basis will be agreed between the borrower and lender, but 1, 3, 6 or 12 month money market rates are commonly used for commercial loans. Typically, floating rate loans will cost less than fixed rate loans, depending in part on the yield curve. In return for paying a lower loan rate, the borrower takes the interest rate risk: the risk that rates will go up in future. In cases where the yield curve is inverted, the cost of borrowing at floating rates may actually be higher; in most cases, however, lenders require higher rates for longer-term fixed-rate loans, because they are bearing the interest rate risk (risking that the rate will go up, and they will get lower interest income than they would otherwise have had). Certain types of floating rate loans, particularly mortgages, may have other special features such as interest rate caps, or limits on the maximum interest rate or maximum change in the interest rate that is allowable.

Floating rate loan

In business and finance, a ''floating rate loan'' (or a variable or adjustable rate loan) refers to a loan with a floating interest rate. The total rate paid by the customer varies, or "floats", in relation to some base rate, to which a spread or

is added (or more rarely, subtracted). The term of the loan may be substantially longer than the basis from which the floating rate loan is priced; for example, a 25-year mortgage may be priced off the 6-month

prime lending rate A prime rate or prime lending rate is an interest rate used by banks, usually the interest rate at which banks lend to customers with good credit. Some variable interest rates may be expressed as a percentage above or below prime rate. Use in dif ...

. Floating rate loans are common in the banking industry and for large corporate customers. A floating rate mortgage is a mortgage with a floating rate, as opposed to a fixed rate loan. In many countries, floating rate loans and mortgages are predominant. They may be referred to by different names, such as an

adjustable rate mortgage A variable-rate mortgage, adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM), or tracker mortgage is a mortgage loan with the interest rate on the note periodically adjusted based on an index which reflects the cost to the lender of borrowing on the credit markets.W ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. In some countries, there may be no special name for this type of loan or mortgage, as floating rate lending may be the norm. For example, in Canada substantially all mortgages are floating rate mortgages; borrowers may choose to "fix" the interest rate for any period between six months and ten years, although the actual term of the loan may be 25 years or more. Floating rate loans are sometimes referred to as

bullet loan A bullet is a kinetic projectile, a component of firearm ammunition that is shot from a gun barrel. Bullets are made of a variety of materials, such as copper, lead, steel, polymer, rubber and even wax. Bullets are made in various shapes and con ...

s, although they are distinct concepts. In a bullet loan, a large payment (the "bullet" or "balloon") is payable at the end of the loan, as opposed to a capital and interest loan, where the payment pattern incorporates level payments throughout the loan, each containing an element of capital, and no bullet payment at the end. A floating rate loan therefore may or may not incorporate a bullet payment.

Example

A customer borrows $25,000 from a bank; the terms of the loan are (six-month)

+ 3.5%. At the time of issuing the loan, the

rate is 2.5%. For the first six months, the borrower pays the bank 6% annual interest: in this simplified case $750 for six months. At the end of the first six months, the LIBOR rate has risen to 4%; the client will pay 7.5% (or $937.5) for the second half of the year. At the beginning of the second year, the

rate has now fallen to 1.5%, and the borrowing costs are $500 for the following six months. An

Interest rate option An Interest rate option is a specific financial derivative contract whose value is based on interest rates. Its value is tied to an underlying interest rate, such as the yield on 10 year treasury notes. Similar to equity options, there are two ty ...

contract can hedge the floating rate loan - for example, an interest rate cap and floor ensures a borrower's future interest cash flows will not exceed a certain predefined level.

was discontinued as the conventional floating interest rate on December 31, 2021. In the United States, SOFR (Secured Overnight Financing Rate) has been accepted as the industry standard after the cessation of basing floating interest rate spreads on

. The transition from

to SOFR has been relatively uneventful, and SOFR has been adapted by many industries as a standard instrument for determining non-fixed interest rates.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Floating Interest Rate Banking Interest rates Loans

Floating rate loan

Example

See also

References