A person, company, or other organization that
owes money to another individual, company, or organization. Generally speaking, a debtor acquires debt for a specific purpose, such as to
fund a college education or to purchase a house. In business and government, debt is often
issued in the form of
bonds, which are
tradeable securities entitling the bearer to
repayment at the appropriate time(s), making the issuing government or business the debtor. A debtor almost always compensates a
creditor with a certain amount of interest, representing the
time value of money. However, some areas of
finance, especially
Islamic banking, do not allow debt with interest.