Financial transaction

A financial transaction is an event or condition under the contract between a buyer and a seller to exchange an asset for payment. It involves a change in the status of the finances of two or more businesses or individuals.

History

After barter, financial transactions have been established with precious metal such as gold and silver. Fiat money is presently developed with electronic money.

Present situation

In 1997, $1,300 billions were exchanged every day on Foreign exchange market, about $475 billions per year.^[1]

The world financial transactions have jumped from $1,100,000 billions dollars in 2002 to $2,200,000 billions dollars in 2008 : 95% of this global amount is only used for speculation.^[2]

Examples

Purchase

This is the most common type of financial transaction. An item or good is exchanged for money. This transaction results in a decrease in the finances of the purchaser and an increase in the benefits of the sellers. An example is a real estate transaction.

Loan

This is a slightly more complicated transaction in which the lender gives a single large amount of money to the borrower now in return for many smaller repayments of the borrower to the lender over time, usually on a fixed schedule. The smaller delayed repayments usually add up to more than the first large amount. The difference in payments is called interest. Here, money is given for not any specific reason.

Mortgage

This is a combined loan and purchase in which a lender gives a large amount of money to a borrower for the specific purpose of purchasing a very expensive item (most often a house). As part of the transaction, the borrower usually agrees to give the item (or some other high value item) to the lender if the loan is not paid back on time. This guarantee of repayment is known as collateral.

Bank account

Main article: Bank account

A bank is a business that is based almost entirely on financial transactions. In addition to acting as a lender for loans and mortgages, banks act as a borrower in a special type of loan called an account. The lender is known as a customer and gives unspecified amounts of money to the bank for unspecified amounts of time. The bank agrees to repay any amount in the account at any time and will pay small amounts of interest on the amount of money that the customer leaves in the account for a certain period of time. In addition, the bank guarantees that the money will not be stolen while it is in the account and will reimburse the customer if it is. In return, the bank gets to use the money for other financial transactions as long as they hold it.

Credit-card

This is a special combination of a purchase and a loan. The seller gives the buyer the good or item as normal, but the buyer pays the seller using a credit card. In this way, the buyer is paying with a loan from the credit card company, usually a bank. The bank or other financial institution issues credit cards to buyers that allow any number of loans up to a certain cumulative amount. Repayment terms for credit card loans, or debts vary, but the interest is often extremely high. An example of common repayment terms would be a minimum payment of the greater of $10 or 3% every month and a 15-20% interest charge for any unpaid loan amount. In addition to interest, buyers are sometimes charged a yearly fee to use the credit card.

In order to collect the money for their item, the seller must apply to the credit card company with a signed receipt. Sellers usually apply for many payments at regular intervals. The seller is also charged a fee of normally 1-3% of the purchase price by the credit card company for the privilege of accepting that brand of credit card for purchases.

Thus, in a credit card purchase, the transfer of the item is immediate, but all payments are delayed. The credit card holder receives a monthly account of all transactions. The billing delay may be long enough to defer a purchase payment to the bill after the next one.

Debit-card

This is a special type of purchase. The item or good is transferred as normal, but the purchaser uses a debit card instead of money to pay. A debit card contains an electronic record of the purchaser's account with a bank. Using this card, the seller is able to send an electronic signal to the buyer's bank for the amount of the purchase,and that amount of money is simultaneously debited from the customer's account and credited to the account of the seller. This is possible even if the buyer or seller use different financial institutions. Currently, fees to both the buyer and seller for the use of debit cards are fairly low because the banks want to encourage the use of debit cards. The seller must have a card reader set up in order for such purchases to be made. Debit cards allow a buyer to have access to all the funds in his account without having to carry the money around. It is more difficult to steal such funds than cash, but it is still done. See also skimming and shoulder surfing.

See also

• Financial transaction tax
• Nanoeconomics

References

1. ^ (French) Jean de Maillard, Un monde sans loi : La criminalité financière en images, 1999, Éditions Stock, ISBN 2-234-04827-3, page 28.
2. ^ (French) File "L'Ogre de la Finance" published in Revue québécoise Relations, june 2009, linked at http://www.assnat.qc.ca/fra/39Legislature1/DocumentsDeposesCommissions/CFP/CFP-49_2009_05_27_11_38.pdf