1. Except as provided with respect to a finance charge for loans pursuant to open end credit under section 537.2402, a lender may contract for and receive a finance charge not exceeding the maximum charge permitted by the laws of this state or of the United States for similar lenders, and, in addition, with respect to a consumer loan, a supervised financial organization or a mortgage lender may contract for and receive a finance charge, calculated according to the actuarial method, not exceeding twenty-one percent per year on the unpaid balance of the amount financed. This subsection does not prohibit a lender from contracting for and receiving a finance charge exceeding twenty-one percent per year on the unpaid balance of the amount financed on consumer loans if authorized by other provisions of the law.
2. This section does not limit or restrict the manner of calculating the finance charge, whether by way of add-on, discount, or otherwise, so long as the rate of the finance charge does not exceed that permitted by this section or the laws of this state or of the United States. The finance charge permitted by this section or the laws of this state or of the United States may be calculated by determining the single annual percentage rate as required to be disclosed to the consumer pursuant to section 537.3201 which, when applied according to the actuarial method to the unpaid balances of the amount financed, will yield the finance charge for that transaction which would result from applying any graduated rates permitted by this section or the laws of this state or of the United States to the transaction on the assumption that all scheduled payments will be made when due. If the loan is a precomputed consumer credit transaction, the finance charge may be calculated on the assumption that all scheduled payments will be made when due, and the effect of prepayment is governed by section 537.2510.
3. Except as provided in subsection 5, the term of a loan for the purposes of this section commences on the date the loan is made. Any month may be counted as one-twelfth of a year but a day is counted as one-three hundred sixty-fifth of a year. Subject to classifications and differentiations the lender may reasonably establish, a part of a month in excess of fifteen days may be treated as a full month if periods of fifteen days or less are disregarded and that procedure is not consistently used to obtain a greater yield than would otherwise be permitted. The administrator may adopt rules not inconsistent with the Truth in Lending Act with respect to treating as regular other minor irregularities in amount or time.
4. Subject to classifications and differentiations the lender may reasonably establish, the lender may make the same finance charge on all amounts financed within a specified range. A finance charge so made does not violate subsection 1, if both of the following are applicable:
a. When applied to the median amount within each range, it does not exceed the maximum permitted by that subsection.
b. When applied to the lowest amount within each range, it does not produce a rate of finance charge exceeding the rate calculated according to paragraph "a" by more than eight percent of the rate calculated according to paragraph "a".
5. With respect to an insurance premium loan, the term of the loan commences on the earliest inception date of a policy or contract of insurance for which the premium is financed.
[C75, 77, 79, 81, § 537.2401; 82 Acts, ch 1153, § 16, 18(1)]
83 Acts, ch 124, § 26
Referred to in § 533.14, 537.1301, 537.2308, 537.2504, 537.2505
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