WSJ prime rate is a consensus prime rate agreement published by the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ prime rate or National prime rate is the interest rate charged on the money lent by one bank to the other. This prime rate is often called as the Fed Prime Rate or even the U.S. Prime Rate.

The WSJ prime rate information is usually obtained via survey of financial institutions (especially banks) .The increase or decrease of the WSJ prime rate is typically decided by the Federal Reserve board. The WSJ prime rate commonly remains three percent higher than the federal funds rate.

The prime rate published in Wall Street Journal is generally one of several rates that is usually fixed and used by banks to price consumer and business loans. The news paper, Wall Street Journal determines this prime rate by calculating the rates set by at least 70 percent of the nation's 30 largest banks.

It is important for the banks to have the updated prime rate information all the time and thus banks are very keen to keep a close eye on the calculated prime rate estimate along with a wide analysis of the prime rate history. The Wall Street Journal Prime Rate forecast and history is widely used by academics, economists and investors across various countries in the world.

Some banks fix their interest rates below the current prime rate strategically to generate more business to help customers to save more money on loans borrowed from the bank. As per the economic conditions, the WSJ prime rate may fluctuate in increase or decrease of the interest rate. However, as the prime rate is always tied to credit, the interest rate increases with the decline of the credit worth.

The institutions most likely to benefit from borrowing at the prime rate are big corporations. It is because of the reason that the banking institutions believe their large corporate clients to be less likely to default on loans than other types of customers. The banking institutions are more comfortable lending money by offering at more attractive rates to huge commercial customers as they pose a very little risk to banking institutions.

Credit history or credit report is, in many countries, a record of an individual's or company's past borrowing and repaying, including information about late payments and bankruptcy. The term "credit reputation" can either be used synonymous to credit history or to credit score.

In the U.S., when a customer fills out an application for a free credit report from a bank, store or credit card company, their information is forwarded to a credit bureau. The credit bureau matches the name, address and other identifying information on the credit applicant with information retained by the bureau in its files.That's why it's very important for creditors, lenders and others to provide accurate data to credit bureaus