Refinancing your loan to manage debt can be a daunting process if not handled carefully. There are several ways to refinance your loan to manage debt, two such methods are Debt financing and Debt restructuring.
Debt refinancing and Debt restructuring are two separate processes, but they at times appeal to the same image— which is of a company in despair on the verge of bankruptcy possibly making a last-ditch effort to keep the business afloat. Anyhow, this is not always the case.
Regardless of whether a company is refinancing or restructuring is often lost in translation. This has often led to many people, including even seasoned finance professionals, using the exchanged words interchangeably when in reality they are different processes.
Loan refinancing for debt is used on a much broader basis than loan restructuring for debt, wherein a borrower usually leverages a newly obtained loan with greater terms to pay off a previous loan
In debt refinancing, a borrower requests a new loan or a debt instrument that has superior terms than a previous contract that can be used to pay down the previous commitment. For example, refinancing would be applying for a novel, affordable loan along with using the proceeds from that loan to pay off the liabilities from an existing loan.
Debt Refinancing is often taken more liberally than Debt Restructuring because it is a quicker and more viable process, easier to qualify for, as well as impacts credit score with certainty after the payment history reflects the original loan being successfully paid off.
With numerous reasons for refinancing, with the most general reasons being reducing the interest rates on loans, easily consolidating debts, strategically changing the loan structure, along with freeing up cash. Borrowers with extensively high credit scores especially benefit from refinancing as they can secure more favorable contract terms and lower interest rates.
Essentially, if you are replacing one loan with another, thus debt refinancing is most often used when there is a change in interest rates which may influence highly newly created debt contracts. For instance, if any interest rates are slashed by the esteemed Federal Reserve, then any kind of new loans, as well as bonds, will usually offer a lower yield on any interest payments, which is advantageous to borrowers.
In this circumstance, debt refinancing can perhaps allow borrowers to pay much less interest over time for the same nominal loan. It is vital to note that when you are trying to pay down loans before their maturity, many kinds of fixed-term loans have essentially what is predominantly known as call provisions—these terms that impose penalties in the case of early loan repayment. In such situations, the borrowers should do their verification in calculating the net present value of the cost of one loan versus the other.
You should consider loan refinancing for debt if your credit score has significantly improved after you obtained the loan, you might also be eligible for a lower interest rate by the method of refinancing. This essentially directs or translates to a reasonably lower monthly expense. However, to consider prepayment penalties as well as refinancing fees one must ensure it’s a financially sound decision.
Benefits of Debt Refinancing
There are several benefits to debt refinancing which can be enlisted as:
- One can get a reasonably lower monthly mortgage payment along with an interest rate.
- One can convert an adjustable interest rate to a fixed interest rate, gaining predictability as well as possible savings.
- One can acquire an influx of cash for any kind of pressing financial need.
- One can set a shorter loan term, allowing an individual to save money on the total interest paid.
