Fone Forum

A York man walks into a High Street bank & asks for a loan.
He tells the bank officer he is going to Australia on business for two weeks & needs to borrow £5,000.

The bank officer tells him that the bank will need some form of security for the loan, so the Yorkshire lad hands over the keys and documents of new Ferrari parked on the street in front of the bank.  He produces the Log Book & every thing checks out.
The loan officer agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan.

The bank manager & its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the rough-looking Yorkshireman for using a £120,000 Ferrari as collateral against a £5000 loan.
The bank manager then instructs an employee of the bank to drive the Ferrari into the bank's underground garage, where he parks it.

Two weeks later, the man returns, repays the £5,000 & the interest of £15.41.
The bank officer says to the Yorkshireman, "Sir, we are very happy to have had your business, & this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled...while you were away, we checked you out further & found that you are a multi-millionaire.
What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow "£5,000"?

The Yorkshireman replies: "Where else in York can I park my car for two weeks for only £15.41 & expect it to be there when I return?”
 
Ah, the mind of a true Yorkshireman...
This is why they survive.

Good ,Excellent

Not bad for a loan  ;D
effective APR 8,0352142858%

Please explain how you calculate that delaro.  £15.41 for 2 weeks is about £400.66 for a year, and £400.66 is about 8% of £5000.

I couldn't explain it better pal. He had a loan for a fortnight not the whole year. If he had had it he would have paid £400 interest.

Regards.

dlR

When I learned maths, 8% wasn't 8,0352142858% !

So I must repeat my question: how did you make it 8,0352142858%?

the comma has been used as a decimal point, as many Europeans do

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator

Well that's a very stupid way of writing a figure.  I couldn't understand why he didn't write it as 80,352,142,858%, nor how it could possibly be that big.

I am not even sure how ~ 8% could turn into 15 -16 % APR, but I admit I don't know how anyone calculates those!

a flat 8% becomes close to 16% when it is a loan repaid in regular instalments

this is because effectively the average amount borrowed with respect to time is only about half the initial amount

Ah that makes some sense!  Thank you for the explanation andy.  :)

Thank you Andy! 8.0352142858%

With all respect HiPD I have to disappoint you - UK is not a World's Navel and people elsewhere tend to do things in different ways. Even if it comes to as simple things as writing figures.


Perhaps you might wish to enlighten query by reading this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_interest#Compound).

Oh I wish I knew if I should intrude into this interesting debate or not !        ;)

But let's give this a go !        :o

I actually disagree with all previous contributors, and as someone who is FPC qualified, and has Institute of Bankers' Exams as well, I suppose I need the courage to wade in.        ::)

Firstly, I agree with HiPD: this is a UK forum, after all, so all our figures should be expressed in ways intelligible to UK readers.         ;)

Secondly, I regret to say I disagree with andy: the premise of his reply is that this is a repayment loan: it isn't !  It is entirely an interest only loan, so 8% interest is an APR of ~ 8% !        :o

And finally, thank you to all contributors for a very stimulating debate, so far.       :)

I didn't say it is a loan repaid in instalments, but explained why such a loan could simultaneously be described with 2 different interest rates

I did originally post 15.5 to 16 % however, but corrected myself, editing the post within a minute to omit it

OK andy accepted.  HiPD quoted you, and I found your original comments in my email copy.  But I fully accept you corrected yourself in seconds.  Sorry.        :'(

Just appreciate for a second that most of its users are not from the UK. A little more tolerance to them will be warmly appreciated by them. MH, I simply cannot understand why by agreeing you also seem to be implying that it is OK to call other members here "stupid", or that their native numbering methods are "stupid"! Do you condone this?

After all, it doesn't take a genius, let alone someone who has passed Institute of Bankers' Exams to figure out what Delaro was meaning! Anybody who misreads 8,0352142858 as 80,352,142,858 and not as 8.0352142858 is doing so to make a mountain out of a molehill. After all, if Delaro was intending to present this in conventional UK numbering format, then where are the other commas which would be required! (As pointed out by yourself) i.e. to separate the 1000's, millions and billions? What would the isolated 8 in front of a comma even be referring to?

Just think about this. Can anyone even name me one type of economic factor where an APR of 80 trillion percent is even a feasible reality??

I think the figure as presented by Delaro is therefore completely intelligible to the average UK reader. If there was really a genuine misunderstanding (which I fail to understand), it should not lead to comments saying that this is a "stupid" way of presenting numbers, when a huge part of the world uses such a numbering system (myself included). On the contrary, not even knowing this, may be demonstrating just that word! 
 
And I'm not even the one who started turning this light-hearted thread onto its head for the sake of nit-picking!  ;)

I am sorry petkow, but I think you are the one nitpicking.

Those from abroad are very welcome here, but just as I wouldn't think of employing a UK convention if posting in Europe, anyone as intelligent as delaro shouldn't have used an European convention here.  I genuinely didn't understand how he had apparently 'lost his marbles' on this issue.  His 8,0352142858 figure looked like zillions and zillions to me, and I was obviously not alone.

I understand very well that you may only be expressing sympathy for your fellow Pole here, but just as we have to welcome our fellow EEC members into our country, so they should reciprocate by being sensitive - by not hoisting foreign conventions on us.

I really appreciate delaro's other contributions here, and fully support his role on the forum.  But I have to be honest in saying I wish commas hadn't been introduced into numbers posted on a UK forum, however a minor issue that may be to you.

With regards to the language to which you objected, I have had cause to message HiPD about his forthright comments before, and may well send him a further missive.

The language that petkow complained about was my own, not mh's, so please don't use my words to attack him.  I was glad that he agreed with me, and found the figure presentation as confusing as I did, but I think, with hindsight, that 'stupid' was a bit OTT, but it surely looks that way when you first encounter it, and neither delaro nor petkow have given a single reason for using it.

delaro I apologise if my words offended you, but you introduced an unhelpful confusing foreign convention, without explanation, and apparently with no regrets for having done so.  If I can apologise to you for my somewhat intemperate language, perhaps you could apologise too for the unnecessary note of conflict that your strange looking post gave rise to?

::)

Apology accepted! ;)

So let's just move on as it's not a major issue. That's really all I was trying to say! It was made an issue for some bizarre reason before I even said anything.

By the way, though it is completely irrelevant, I'm not from Poland. The whole intention of bringing this to light was not to express sympathy. It was just to highlight that we can all show a bit more tolerance at times. Calling some other system as being stupid is not tolerant; a fact that I note you also agree with. I won't say any more on this matter in this thread.

Excellent idea: that has got my vote too !        :)


That needs both an apology, and an explanation.  It was my genuine mistake.  I looked up the origins of your ( apparent ) surname - as given in your email address - because I was surprised by it.  Yahoo answers gave me the answer Polish.       :o

I will send you the URL by PM, in case you are interested yourself, or can throw some light on how yahoo answers were so apparently mistaken.        ;)

Sorry for the wrong deduction.         :'(

There's no need to apologise at all. The days of guessing a persons origin from a name have passed.

It's like Cruz, D'Silva, D'Souza are all fairly common surnames from western coastal areas of India. Then there's also this chap called Obama who is from the USA I believe....  ;)

HiPD - Perhaps offended but definitely disappointed. I would not expect similar immature kindergarden vocabulary from any member and especially not from one of your caliber. I don't believe you balanced your words and furthermore IMVHO you do not regret them thus your apology does not represent great value to myself. Regardless of that I shall accept it to avoid the escalation of this 'comma conflict' even if you think that what I've just done is so vulgar or undiplomatic or so not British or as you would say "stupid".

mh - Most of us know you usually leave very little (or don't leave at all) margin of error which I can't blame you for. Would you please note I take the responsibility for the comma confusion. Would you please note the error you are referring to (which appears to be an error in English speaking countries only) was not intentional and figure (obviously) was posted in good will. Hoisting foreign conventions in this case would be highly debatable in my eyes. Would you please note I perceive the foneforum as Lingua franca forum where members (regardless different backgrounds) sharing their opinions will make mistakes whether you like it or not. I hope all the errors will be as little as the dot representing decimal separator.

My impression was (until now) that sharing would be the most important.

dlR

delaro my previous posts show that I agree that HiPD's language was intemperate at best.

For myself, I want only to apologize publicly for any unbalanced comments I made earlier in the thread.

Both petkow and I agreed that it was best to drop the issue and to move on.  I do hope you will kindly do so also.

TIA.