Financial Matters - Loans

Types of Loans

Short-term loans are credit that is usually paid back in one year or less. Short term loans are usually used in financing the purchase of operating inputs, wages for hired labour, machinery and equipment, and/or family living expenses. Usually lenders expect short-term loans to be repaid after their purposes have been served, e.g. after the expected production output has been sold.

Loans for operating production inputs e.g. cotton for the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (COTCO) and beef for the Cold Storage Company of Zimbabwe (CSC), are assumed to be self-liquidating. In other words, although the inputs are used up in the production, the added returns from their use will repay the money borrowed to purchase the inputs, plus interest. Astute managers are also expected to have figured in a risk premium and a return to labour management. On the other hand, loans for investment capital items like machinery are not likely to be self-liquidating in the short term. Loans for family living expenses are not at all self-liquidating and must come out of net cash income after all cash obligations are paid.

Intermediate-term (IT) loans are credit extended for several years, usually one to five years. This type of credit is normally used for purchases of buildings, equipment and other production inputs that require longer than one year to generate sufficient returns to repay the loan.

Long-term loans are those loans for which repayment exceeds five to seven years and may extend to 40 years. This type of credit is usually extended on assets (such as land) which have a long productive life in the business. Some land improvement programmes like land levelling, reforestation, land clearing and drainage-way construction are usually financed with long-term credit.

Unsecured loans are credit given out by lenders on no other basis than a promise by the borrower to repay. The borrower does not have to put up collateral and the lender relies on credit reputation. Unsecured loans usually carry a higher interest rate than secured loans and may be difficult or impossible to arrange for businesses with a poor credit record.

Secured loans are those loans that involve a pledge of some or all of a business's assets. The lender requires security as protection for its depositors against the risks involved in the use planned for the borrowed funds. The borrower may be able to bargain for better terms by putting up collateral, which is a way of backing one's promise to repay.

Instalment loans are those loans in which the borrower or credit customer repays a set amount each period (week, month, year) until the borrowed amount is cleared. Instalment credit is similar to charge account credit, but usually involves a formal legal contract for a predetermined period with specific payments. With this plan, the borrower usually knows precisely how much will be paid and when.

Single payment loans are those loans in which the borrower pays no principal until the amount is due. Because the company must eventually pay the debt in full, it is important to have the self-discipline and professional integrity to set aside money to be able to do so. This type of loan is sometimes called the "lump sum" loan, and is generally repaid in less than a year.

Simple interest loans are those loans in which interest is paid on the unpaid loan balance. Thus, the borrower is required to pay interest only on the actual amount of money outstanding and only for the actual time the money is used (e.g. 30 days, 90 days, 4 months and 2 days, 12 years and one month).

Add-on interest loans are credit in which the borrower pays interest on the full amount of the loan for the entire loan period. Interest is charged on the face amount of the loan at the time it is made and then "added on". The resulting sum of the principal and interest is then divided equally by the number of payments to be made. The company is thus paying interest on the face value of the note although it has use of only a part of the initial balance once principal payments begin. This type of loan is sometimes called the "flat rate" loan and usually results in an interest rate higher than the one specified.

Discount or front-end loans are loans in which the interest is calculated and then subtracted from the principal first. For example, a $5,000 discount loan at 10% for one year would result in the borrower only receiving Rs.4,500 to start with, and the Rs.5,000 debt would be paid back, as specified, by the end of a year.

On a discount loan, the lender discounts or deducts the interest in advance. Thus, the effective interest rates on discount loans are usually much higher than (in fact, more than double) the specified interest rates.

Balloon loans are loans that normally require only interest payments each period, until the final payment, when all principal is due at once. They are sometimes referred to as the "last payment due", and have a concept that is the same as the single payment loan, but the due date for repaying principal may be five years or more in the future rather than the customary 90 days or 6 months for the single payment loan.

In some cases a principal payment is made each time interest is paid, but because the principal payments do not amortise (pay off) the loan, a large sum is due at the loan maturity date.

Amortised loans are a partial payment plan where part of the loan principal and interest on the unpaid principal are repaid each year. The standard plan of amortisation, used in many intermediate and long-term loans, calls for equal payments each period, with a larger proportion of each succeeding payment representing principal and a small amount representing interest.