Finance and financial system

Interest and interest rates.

Interest is the amount of money paid by a borrower to a lender in exchange for the use of the lender’s money for certain period of time. (You earn interest from a bank if you have a savings account and you pay interest to a lender if you have a loan.) The interest rate is the amount of interest paid per year divided by the principal amount (the amount loaned). Example: if you paid $500 in interest per year for a loan of $10,000, the interest rate is 500 divided by 10,000, or 矎ve percent (5%).