A payday loan (also called a payday advance, salary loan, payroll loan, small dollar loan, short term, or cash advance loan) is a small, short-term unsecured loan, "regardless of whether repayment of loans is linked to a borrower's payday." The loans are also sometimes referred to as "cash advances," though that term can also refer to cash provided against a prearranged line of credit such as a credit card.

Payday advance loans rely on the consumer having previous payroll and employment records.

Legislation regarding payday loans varies widely between different countries, and in federal systems, between different states or provinces.

A cash advance is a service provided by most credit card and charge card issuers.

The service allows cardholders to withdraw cash, either through an ATM or over the counter at a bank or other financial agency, up to a certain limit.

For a credit card, this will be the credit limit (or some percentage of it).

In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, and/or other entities to other individuals, organizations etc.

The recipient (i.e. the borrower) incurs a debt, and is usually liable to pay interest on that debt until it is repaid, and also to repay the principal amount borrowed.

A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled ".

Cooperatives may include:

Credit (from Latin credit, "(he/she/it) believes") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but instead promises either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date.

In other words, credit is a method of making reciprocity formal, legally enforceable, and extensible to a large group of unrelated people.