Maturity
a.k.a. Maturity date
The date a bond, loan or contract ends and the borrower must hand back the money.
In plain English
The date a bond, loan or contract ends and the borrower must hand back the money.
Maturity is a debt's finish line. A 10-year government bond issued today matures in ten years: on that day the government pays back the face value, the principal, and the bond ceases to exist. Futures and forward contracts have maturities too, the date they settle.
The time left until maturity matters a lot. Longer-dated debt is more sensitive to interest-rate changes, which is why the yield curve plots yields against maturity.
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