The nominal interest rate is conceptually the simplest type of interest rate. It is quite simply the stated interest rate of a given bond or loan. This type of interest rate is referred to as the coupon rate for fixed income investments, as it is the interest rate guaranteed by the issuer that was traditionally stamped on the coupons that were redeemed by the bondholders. The nominal interest rate is in essence the actual monetary price that borrowers pay to lenders to use their money. If the nominal rate on a loan is 5%, then borrowers can expect to pay Rs.5 of interest for every Rs.100 loaned to them.
Real Interest Rate -
The real interest rate is slightly more complex than the nominal rate but still fairly simple. The nominal interest rate doesn’t tell the whole story, because inflation reduces the lender's or investor’s purchasing power so that they cannot buy the same amount of goods or services at payoff or maturity with a given amount of money as they can now. The real interest rate is so named because it states the “real” rate that the lender or investor receives after inflation is factored in; that is, the interest rate that exceeds the inflation rate. If a bond that compounds annually has a 6% nominal yield and the inflation rate is 4%, then the real rate of interest is only 2%. The real rate of interest could be said to be the actual mathematical rate at which investors and lenders are increasing their purchasing power with their bonds and loans. It is actually possible for real interest rates to be negative if the inflation rate exceeds the nominal rate of an investment. For example, a bond with a 3% nominal rate will have a real interest rate of -1% if the inflation rate is 4%. A comparison of real and nominal interest rates can therefore be summed up in this equation: Nominal interest rate – Inflation = Real interest rate
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