The prime rate, which is usually marketed by banks (not to be confuse prime) results from the interest rate published by the Central Bank of Israel with an added 1.5%.

The interest rate may be revised on the last Monday of each month by the governor of the CBI, and that’s why it is considered as a variable interest rate.

This revision may be upwards or downward and generally doesn’t go over a 0.25% variation.

The “prime” is used for non-affected loans (called consumption loans) as well as mortgage loans (call real estate loan) and a bank commission is generally added or subtracted, which will be fixed during the duration of the loan.

It allows users to make anticipated payments, partial or total, without penalties, and at any time as long as the user refers to the loaning bank 10 days before the reimbursement.