A basis point (often abbreviated as bp, often pronounced as "bip" or "beep") is one hundredth of 1

percentage point A percentage point or percent point is the unit (measurement), unit for the difference (mathematics), arithmetic difference between two percentages. For example, moving up from 40 percent to 44 percent is an increase of 4 percentage points (altho ...

. Changes of interest rates are often stated in basis points. For example, if an existing interest rate of 10 percent is increased by 1 basis point, the new interest rate would be 10.01 percent. The related term ''

permyriad A basis point (often abbreviated as bp, often pronounced as "bip" or "beep") is one hundredth of 1 percentage point. Changes of interest rates are often stated in basis points. For example, if an existing interest rate of 10 percent is increased ...

'' means one part per ten thousand.

Definition

:1 basis point (bp) = 0.01%, 10⁻⁴, , or 0.0001. :10 bp = 0.1%, 10⁻³, , or 0.001. :100 bp = 1%, 10⁻², , or 0.01. Basis points are used as a convenient

unit of measurement A unit of measurement, or unit of measure, is a definite magnitude (mathematics), magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other qua ...

in contexts where percentage differences of less than 1% are discussed. The most common example is

interest rate An interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited, or borrowed (called the principal sum). The total interest on an amount lent or borrowed depends on the principal sum, the interest rate, ...

s, where differences in interest rates of less than 1% per year are usually meaningful to talk about. For example, a difference of 0.10 percentage points is equivalent to a change of 10 basis points (e.g., a 4.67% rate increases by 10 basis points to 4.77%). In other words, an increase of 100 basis points means a rise by 1 percentage point. Like

s, basis points avoid the ambiguity between relative and absolute discussions about

s by dealing only with the absolute change in numeric value of a rate. For example, if a report says there has been a "1% increase" from a 10% interest rate, this could refer to an increase either from 10% to 10.1% (relative, 1% of 10%), or from 10% to 11% (absolute, 1% plus 10%). However, if the report says there has been a "100 basis point increase" from a 10% interest rate, then the interest rate of 10% has increased by 1.00% (the absolute change) to an 11% rate. It is common practice in the financial industry to use basis points to denote a rate change in a

financial instrument Financial instruments are monetary contracts between parties. They can be created, traded, modified and settled. They can be cash (currency), evidence of an ownership, interest in an entity or a contractual right to receive or deliver in the form ...

, or the difference ( spread) between two interest rates, including the yields of fixed-income

securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...

. Since certain

loans In finance, a loan is the tender of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a debt and is usually required to pay interest for the use of the money. The document evidencing the debt ( ...

and bonds may commonly be quoted in relation to some index or underlying security, they will often be quoted as a spread over (or under) the index. For example, a loan that bears

interest In finance and economics, interest is payment from a debtor or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distinct f ...

of 0.50% per annum above the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) is said to be 50 basis points over SOFR, which is commonly expressed as "S+50bps" or simply "S+50". The term "basis point" has its origins in trading the "basis" or the spread between two interest rates. Since the basis is usually small, these are quoted multiplied up by 10,000, and hence a "full point" movement in the "basis" is a basis point. Contrast with pips in FX forward markets.

Expense ratio The expense ratio of a stock or asset fund is the total percentage of fund assets used for administrative, management, advertising (12b-1), and all other expenses. An expense ratio of 1% per annum means that each year 1% of the fund's total assets ...

s of

investment fund An investment fund is a way of investment, investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These ad ...

s are often quoted in basis points.

Permyriad

A related concept is one part per ten thousand, . The same unit is also (rarely) called a permyriad, literally meaning "for (every) myriad (ten thousand)". If used interchangeably with basis point, the permyriad is potentially confusing because an increase of one basis point to a 10 basis point value is generally understood to mean an increase to 11 basis points; not an increase of one part in ten thousand, meaning an increase to 10.001 basis points. This is akin to the difference between

percentage In mathematics, a percentage () is a number or ratio expressed as a fraction (mathematics), fraction of 100. It is often Denotation, denoted using the ''percent sign'' (%), although the abbreviations ''pct.'', ''pct'', and sometimes ''pc'' are ...

and

Unicode

A permyriad is written with which looks like a

percent sign The percent sign (sometimes per cent sign in British English) is the symbol used to indicate a percentage, a number or ratio as a fraction (mathematics), fraction of 100. Related signs include the permille (per thousand) sign and the Basis p ...

with three zeroes to the right of the slash. (It can be regarded as a stylized form of the four zeros in the

denominator A fraction (from , "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, thre ...

of "", although it originates as a natural extension of the

percent In mathematics, a percentage () is a number or ratio expressed as a fraction of 100. It is often denoted using the ''percent sign'' (%), although the abbreviations ''pct.'', ''pct'', and sometimes ''pc'' are also used. A percentage is a dime ...

and

permille The phrase per mille () indicates parts per thousand. The associated symbol is , similar to a per cent sign but with an extra zero in the divisor. Major dictionaries do not agree on the spelling, giving other options of per mil, per mill, p ...

signs). There also exists an Arabic-Indic permyriad: .

Related units

Percentage point A percentage point or percent point is the unit (measurement), unit for the difference (mathematics), arithmetic difference between two percentages. For example, moving up from 40 percent to 44 percent is an increase of 4 percentage points (altho ...

difference of 1 part in 100 *

Percentage In mathematics, a percentage () is a number or ratio expressed as a fraction (mathematics), fraction of 100. It is often Denotation, denoted using the ''percent sign'' (%), although the abbreviations ''pct.'', ''pct'', and sometimes ''pc'' are ...

(%) 1 part in 100 *

Per mille The phrase per mille () indicates parts per thousand. The associated symbol is , similar to a per cent sign but with an extra zero in the division (mathematics), divisor. Major dictionaries do not agree on the spelling, giving other options o ...

(‰) 1 part in 1,000 *

Per cent mille A per cent mille or pcm is one one-thousandth of a percent. It can be thought of as a "milli-percent". It is commonly used in epidemiology, and in nuclear reactor engineering as a unit of reactivity. Epidemiology Statistics of crime rates, mort ...

(pcm) 1 part in 100,000 *

Parts per million In science and engineering, the parts-per notation is a set of pseudo-units to describe the small values of miscellaneous dimensionless quantity, dimensionless quantities, e.g. mole fraction or mass fraction (chemistry), mass fraction. Since t ...

(ppm) 1 part in 1,000,000

References

External links