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Interest is a fee, paid on borrowed capital. Assets lent include money, shares, consumer goods through hire purchase, major assets such as aircraft, and even entire factories in finance lease arrangements. The interest is calculated upon the value of the assets in the same manner as upon money. Interest can be thought of as "rent on money". For example, if you want to borrow money from the bank, there is a certain rate you have to pay according to how much you want loaned to you.

The fee is compensation to the lender for foregoing other useful investments that could have been made with the loaned money. These foregone investments are known as the opportunity cost. Instead of the lender using the assets directly, they are advanced to the borrower. The borrower then enjoys the benefit of using the assets ahead of the effort required to obtain them, while the lender enjoys the benefit of the fee paid by the borrower for the privilege. The amount lent, or the value of the assets lent, is called the principal. This principal value is held by the borrower on credit. Interest is therefore the price of credit, not the price of money as it is commonly - and mistakenly - believed to be.^{[citation needed]} The percentage of the principal that is paid as a fee (the interest), over a certain period of time, is called the interest rate.

Interest is the price paid for the use of savings over a given period of time. In ancient biblical Israel, it was against the Law of Moses to charge interest on private loans. During the Middle Ages, time was considered to be property of God. Therefore, to charge interest was considered to be commerce with God's property. Also, St. Thomas Aquinas, the leading theologian of the Catholic Church, argued that the charging of interest is wrong because it amounts to "double charging", charging for both the thing and the use of the thing. The church regarded this as a sin of usury; nevertheless, this rule was never strictly obeyed and eroded gradually until it disappeared during the industrial revolution.

Interest has often been looked down upon in Islamic civilization as well, and most scholars agree that the Qur'an explicitly forbids the practice. Medieval jurists therefore developed several financial instruments to encourage responsible lending. These instruments sometimes closely resemble interest, leading some to wonder whether they truly satisfy the letter and spirit of the rule.

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