Business and Personal Finance Dictionary

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• NOTIONAL AMOUNT
  
  The principal amount or face value of a derivative. Defined by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in FAS 133 as the number of currency units, shares, bushels, pounds or other units specified in a derivatives contract. The notional amount is used to calculate the payments that are exchanged by the counterparties in the transaction. Market participants refer to notional principal because, unlike bonds or other conventional credit instruments, these types of derivatives do not involve an exchange of principal. Rather, the parties state the principal amount only as a basis for calculating the sizes of the interest related payments that they exchange. In this application, principal is only a reference point or idea - hence the term. Also called the notional principal balance.
  
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