Repurchase agreements

Repurchase agreements (RPs or repos) are financial instruments used in the money markets and capital markets. A more accurate and descriptive term is Sale and Repurchase Agreement, since what occurs is that the cash receiver (seller) sells securities now, in return for cash, to the cash provider (buyer), and agrees to repurchase those securities from the buyer for a greater sum of cash at some later date, that greater sum being all of the cash lent and some extra cash (constituting interest, known as the repo rate). There is little that prevents any security from being employed in a repo; so, Treasury or Government bills, corporate and Treasury / Government bonds, and stocks / shares, may all be used as securities involved in a repo. A reverse repo is simply a repurchase agreement as described from the buyer's viewpoint, not the seller's. Hence, the seller executing the transaction would describe it as a 'repo', while the buyer in the same transaction would describe it a 'reverse repo'. So 'repo' and 'reverse repo' are exactly the same kind of transaction, just described from opposite viewpoints.
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