Usury

Usury (from the Latin usus, "used") was defined originally as charging a fee for the use of money. This usually meant interest on loans, although charging a fee for changing money (as at a bureau de change) is included in the original meaning. After moderate-interest loans became an accepted part of the business world in the early modern age, the word has come to refer to the charging of unreasonable or relatively high rates of interest.

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Usury (in the original sense of any interest) is scripturally and doctrinally forbidden in many religions. Judaism forbids a Jew to lend at interest to another Jew. It's forbidden in Islam. In 1745, the Catholic teaching on usury was expressed by Pope Benedict XIV in his Vix Pervenit, which strictly forbids the practice as such, although he adds that "entirely just and legitimate reasons arise to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract" - such reasons could include the risk of loss, the time value of money in the modern economy, etc.

Latin: Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The ...

Interest: In finance, interest has three general definitions....

Loan: A loan is a type of debt. Like all debt instruments, a loan entails the redistribution of financial assets over time, between the and the ....