FINANCES: BUSINESS



Finance involves the management of money. All businesses must have enough capital on hand to pay their bills, and for-profit businesses seek extra capital to expand their operations. In some cases, they raise long-term capital by selling ownership in the company. Other common financial activities include granting, monitoring, and collecting on credit or loans and ensuring that customers pay bills on time. The financial division of any business must also establish a good working relationship with a bank. This is particularly important when a business wants to obtain a loan.

COMMERCIAL LOANS

Banks and thrifts make three types of loans: commercial and industrial loans, consumer loans, and mortgage loans. Commercial and industrial loans are loans to businesses or industrial firms. These are primarily short-term working capital loans (loans to finance the purchase of material or labor) or transaction or longer-term loans (loans to purchase machines and equipment). Most commercial banks offer a variable rate on these loans, which means that the interest rate can change over the course of the loan. Whether a bank will make a loan or not depends on the credit and loan history of the borrower, the borrower's ability to make scheduled loan payments, the amount of capital the borrower has invested in the business, the condition of the economy, and the value of the collateral the borrower pledges to give the bank if the loan payments are not made.

COMMERCIAL BANKS AND FACILITIES

For businesses, commercial banks also provide specialized cash management and credit enhancement services. Cash management services are designed to allow businesses to make efficient use of their cash. For example, under normal circumstances a business would sell its product to a customer and send the customer a bill. The customer would then send a check to the business, and the business would then deposit the check in the bank. The time between the date the business receives the check and deposits the check in the bank could be several days or a week. To eliminate this delay and allow the business to earn interest on its money sooner, commercial banks offer services to businesses whereby customers send checks directly to the bank, not the business. This practice is referred to as ?lock box? services because the payments are mailed to a secure post office box where they are picked up by bank couriers for immediate deposit.

Another important business service performed by banks is a credit enhancement. Commercial banks back up the performance of businesses by promising to pay the debts of the business if the business itself cannot pay. This service substitutes the credit of the bank for the credit of the business. This is valuable, for example, in international trade where the exporting firm is unfamiliar with the importing firm in another country and is, therefore, reluctant to ship goods without knowing for certain that the importer will pay for them. By substituting the credit of a foreign bank known to the exporter's bank, the exporter knows payment will be made and will ship the goods. Credit enhancements are frequently called standby letters of credit or commercial letters of credit.

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