transaction between two parties in which one (the creditor or lender) supplies money, goods, services, or securities in return for a promised future payment by the other (the debtor or borrower). Such transactions normally include the payment of interest to the lender. Credit may be extended by public or private institutions to finance business activities, agricultural operations, consumer expenditures, or government projects.

Most modern credit is extended through specialized financial institutions, of which commercial banks are the oldest and most important. In present-day industrial economies, the banks are able to extend and increase the supply of credit by the creation of new deposits for their loan customers.

The lender must judge each loan he makes on the basis of the character of the borrower (his intention to repay), his capacity to repay (based on his potential for earning income), and his collateral (property pledged in case of default on the loan). The terms of credit transactions may be publicly regulated to prevent abuses by customers and lenders as well as to channel credit into particular sectors of the economy.

In fields for which adequate private financing is not available, governments may extend credit. Public lending programs, often combined with public systems of savings collection, provide a large portion of housing finance in many European and Asian countries. In the U.S., public credit is frequently extended for housing, small business, and agriculture.

Commercial banks in both industrialized and less developed countries are often reluctant to extend agricultural credit because of the high risk involved; such loans are usually made only to very large farms. In addition to government credit, cooperative credit systems have been particularly important in less developed countries, where they are often the only source of funds available to small farmers at reasonable rates of interest.