APR is an acronym often seen on loan products and credit card products, but what does it stand for and what does it mean?
APR stands for annual percentage rate and essentially this is the interest that the Member will be paying for on any outstanding balances within a specified billing cycle. While APR is communicated as a “annual rate,” most credit cards are charged in a 30-day billing cycle.
How a Credit Card APR Works and How It is Calculated
Let’s use an example of a credit card with 10% APR and let’s say you have a balance of $200 for the month, which is often the billing cycle of most cards. If you want to see how much APR is applied to the card on a daily basis, the daily periodic rate, then all you have to do is:
- Divide your APR (10%) by 365 (the number of days in a year). For this example, the answer is 0.0273% or 0.00027.
- Next, multiply that by your outstanding balance, which is the balance you would owe on the card. So, $200 times 0.00027 is 0.054. This means that 5 cents a day of interest is added to your balance in the pay period.
Do I always have to pay interest?
If a Member pays the outstanding balance of their card then they can avoid paying the interest owed.
What is a good APR for a credit card?
While most cards out in the market might charge somewhere around 16% APR, at Altura Credit Union, our rates are quite lower.