Call Loan

Call loans are super short-term loans that banks give to brokers or brokerage firms. Brokers use the money to offer margins, which give investors the ability to borrow money to play the market.

Let's say you set up an account with a broker to buy $100,000 in shares and they offer a 50% margin. You pay $100,000, and the brokerage uses call loans to let you invest another $50,000. The call loan is backed up by the securities in the account, so the loan is pretty low risk (which means low interest rates). Brokers have strict rules about how much of a margin they give clients, so even if the value of your investments falls, they still have enough dough to pay off the loans and make some bucks.