Soft loan

A soft loan is a loan with a below-market rate of interest. This is also known as soft financing. Sometimes soft loans provide other concessions to borrowers, such as long repayment periods or interest holidays. Soft loans are usually provided by governments to projects they think are worthwhile. The World Bank and other development institutions provide soft loans to developing countries.

This contrasts with a hard loan, which has to be paid back in an agreed hard currency, usually of a country with a stable robust economy.

An example of a soft loan is China's Export-Import Bank, who gave a $2 billion soft loan to Angola in October 2004 to help build infrastructure. In return, the Angolan government gave China a stake in oil exploration off the coast. Another example is the interest free soft loan of Rs. 20 billion given by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to the government of West Bengal (India) on the condition that it be used for health, education and developing infrastructure and that the government would implement 16 economic reforms.

Loan

In finance, a loan is the lending of money from one individual, organization or entity to another individual, organization or entity. A loan is a debt provided by an entity (organization or individual) to another entity at an interest rate, and evidenced by a promissory note which specifies, among other things, the principal amount of money borrowed, the interest rate the lender is charging, and date of repayment. A loan entails the reallocation of the subject asset(s) for a period of time, between the lender and the borrower.

In a loan, the borrower initially receives or borrows an amount of money, called the principal, from the lender, and is obligated to pay back or repay an equal amount of money to the lender at a later time.

The loan is generally provided at a cost, referred to as interest on the debt, which provides an incentive for the lender to engage in the loan. In a legal loan, each of these obligations and restrictions is enforced by contract, which can also place the borrower under additional restrictions known as loan covenants. Although this article focuses on monetary loans, in practice any material object might be lent.

Generic top-level domain

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last label of every fully qualified domain name. They are called generic for historic reasons; initially, they were contrasted with country-specific TLDs in RFC 920.

The core group of generic top-level domains consists of the com, info, net, and org domains. In addition, the domains biz, name, and pro are also considered generic; however, these are designated as restricted, because registrations within them require proof of eligibility within the guidelines set for each.

Historically, the group of generic top-level domains included domains, created in the early development of the domain name system, that are now sponsored by designated agencies or organizations and are restricted to specific types of registrants. Thus, domains edu, gov, int, and mil are now considered sponsored top-level domains, much like the themed top-level domains (e.g., jobs). The entire group of domains that do not have a geographic or country designation (see country-code top-level domain) is still often referred to by the term generic TLDs.

Loan (sports)

In sports, a loan involves a particular player being allowed to temporarily play for a club other than the one he is currently contracted to. Loan deals may last from a few weeks to all season-long and can also be for a few seasons.

Players may be loaned out to other clubs for several reasons. Most commonly, young players will be loaned to a club in a lower league in order to gain valuable first team experience. In this instance, the parent club will continue to pay the player's wages in full. Some clubs put a formal arrangement in place with a feeder club for this purpose, such as Manchester United and Royal Antwerp,Arsenal and Beveren, or Chelsea and Vitesse. In other leagues such as Italy's Serie A, some smaller clubs have a reputation as a "farm club" and regularly take players, especially younger players, on loan from larger clubs.

A club may take a player on loan if they are short on transfer funds but can still pay wages, or as temporary cover for injuries or suspensions. The parent club might demand a fee and/or that the loaning club pays some or all of the player's wages during the loan period. A club might seek to loan out a squad player to make a saving on his wages, or a first team player to regain match fitness following an injury.

Soft

Soft or SOFT may refer to:

Books

Music

Acronyms

See also

Soft!

Soft! is a novel by British writer Rupert Thomson, written in 1998 London.

Apparently acting as participants in a sleep experiment, the protagonists of this novel find themselves the unwitting word-of-mouth advertisers of 'Kwench!', a new soft drink.

Soft (band)

Soft is an American indie rock band from New York City.

History

Soft formed in Brooklyn in 2003, but the group did not begin performing live until more than a year afterwards; for this reason, they were not well known on the New York music scene despite receiving critical acclaim elsewhere. Prior to forming Soft, lead singer John Reineck had previously played in a band called The Siren Six! at the University of Minnesota, and spent a year in Osaka working for a noise music record label after college. The name "Soft" was given to the group by Mickey Madden from Maroon 5, who suggested it after the group opened for one of their shows. The group also opened for such acts as Kiss, Phantom Planet, Hot Chip, and Voxtrot. After releasing several EPs and an LP in Japan, the group's debut full-length, Gone Faded, was released on October 23, 2007. The band recorded a follow-up album in early 2008 with producer Chris Coady which was released in 2011 as Dogs.

Discography