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A retail lender is a lender who lends money to individuals or retail customers. Banks, credit unions, savings and loan institutions, and mortgage bankers are popular examples of retail lenders. Other retail lenders may include third-party lenders partnering with retail businesses to issue credit to customers.

Retail lending is a widely established business across the financial sector and garners a significant amount of profit for lending institution. Popular retail lending products include personal loans, line of credit accounts, credit cards, home equity lines of credit and mortgages. Lenders must have well established origination procedures which allow them to appropriately manage risk across their credit portfolio and also to highly customize the origination underwriting in order to ensure they are taking on appropriate levels of risk.

What is a 'Non-Performing Asset - NPA '

A nonperforming asset (NPA) refers to a classification for loans on the books of financial institutions that are in default or are in arrears on scheduled payments of principal or interest. In most cases, debt is classified as nonperforming when loan payments have not been made for a period of 90 days. While 90 days of nonpayment is the standard period of time for debt to be categorized as nonperforming, the amount of elapsed time may be shorter or longer depending on the terms and conditions set forth in each loan.

What is a 'Loan Loss Provision'

A loan loss provision is an expense set aside as an allowance for uncollected loans and loan payments. This provision is used to cover a number of factors associated with potential loan losses including bad loans, customer defaults and renegotiated terms of a loan that incur lower than previously estimated payments. Loan loss provisions are an adjustment to loan loss reserves and can also be known as valuation allowances.

What are 'Foreign Deposits'

Foreign deposits are deposits made at, or money put in to, domestic banks outside of the United States. These deposits are not subject to deposit insurance premiums (a premium paid to ensure that funds can be retrieved if the debtor cannot repay the deposit), or reserve requirements (the amount of funds an institution must hold relative to its deposits). The leniency awarded to foreign deposits regarding deposit insurance and reserve requirements is an effort to compete with the offshore banking centers.

What does 'Year Over Year - YOY' mean

Year over year (YOY) is a method of evaluating two or more measured events to compare the results at one time period with those of a comparable time period on an annualized basis. YOY performance is frequently used by investors seeking to gauge whether a company's financial performance is improving or worsening. For example, a business may report its revenues have increased for the third quarter on a YOY basis for the last three years, or a mutual fund that returned 50% last year may have an average YOY return of 12%, which takes into account each annual return since the fund's inception.

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DEFINITION of 'Debt Load'

Debt load refers to the total amount of debt that a company is carrying on its books. This can be found on the company's balance sheet.

What is a 'Small And Mid-size Enterprise (SME)'

Small and mid-size enterprises are businesses that maintain revenues, assets or a number of employees below a certain threshold. Every country or economic organization has its own definition of what is considered a small and medium-sized enterprise. In the United States, there is no distinct way to identify SMEs, but in the European Union, a small-sized enterprise is a company with fewer than 50 employees, while a medium-sized enterprise is one with fewer than 250 employees. In addition to small and mid-size companies, there are micro-companies, which employ up to 10 employees.