SSlower Than Monthly
Terms Frequency Code S: Semi-annually
Terms Frequency Code S means "Semi-annually". A payment is due twice a year, every six months. Five out of every six reporting cycles carry no payment obligation. It is reported in Terms Frequency (Field 28) of the Base Segment, 1 character at position 194.
Specification
| Code | S |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Semi-annually |
| Field | Terms Frequency (Field 28) |
| Record | Base Segment |
| Length / position | 1 char · 194–194 |
| Category | Slower Than Monthly |
| CRRG reference | CRRG Base Segment field definition, Terms Frequency |
What Terms Frequency Code S means
- S means two payments a year at six-month intervals, typically tied to a seasonal cash cycle or a bond-like interest schedule.
- Five of every six monthly records will show nothing received. Under S, a zero Actual Payment Amount is the normal state, not the exception.
- A single missed semi-annual payment leaves six months unpaid, which will age well past the ninety-day and one-hundred-eighty-day thresholds in Payment History Profile terms from one missed obligation.
- S is common in agricultural and land lending, in some interest-only note structures, and in specialty commercial products.
- Do not confuse S with E. Semi-annually is twice a year; semi-monthly is twice a month. The two codes are twelve times apart.
- S does NOT change Scheduled Monthly Payment from a monthly figure. The monthly equivalent is one sixth of the semi-annual payment.
When to report S
- 1A farm credit lender reports a land loan with payments due each spring and fall.
- 2A commercial lender furnishes an interest-only note paying semi-annually until maturity.
- 3A specialty lender aligns repayment to a borrower's two annual income events.
- 4A furnisher reports five consecutive zero-payment months with the account current throughout.
- 5A lender restructures an annual-payment loan onto a semi-annual schedule and updates Terms Frequency in the cycle the change takes effect.
Reporting rules
- Populate Scheduled Monthly Payment with one sixth of the semi-annual payment.
- Do not report delinquency during the five no-obligation months between due dates.
- Express Terms Duration as a count of semi-annual payments, so 010 is five years, and document the convention.
- Verify the code is not a transposition of E before shipping, because the two are separated by a factor of twelve in annual payment count.
- Continue producing a monthly record even though most cycles carry no obligation.
Codes and fields that must agree
A file can be structurally valid and still be wrong. These are the cross-field conditions Terms Frequency Code S has to satisfy.
- Scheduled Monthly Payment is a MONTHLY figure and equals one sixth of the semi-annual payment. Putting the full semi-annual amount in that field overstates monthly debt sixfold.
- Terms Duration counts semi-annual payments. A Terms Duration read as months under S understates the term by a factor of six.
- Pairs with Portfolio Type I. S on Portfolio Type R, C, or M is a contradiction with how those products bill.
- Actual Payment Amount is zero in five of every six cycles by design, so any zero-payment alerting must be gated on Terms Frequency.
- A single missed payment ages six months of unpaid obligation into the Payment History Profile, which can push a one-payment miss past a charge-off threshold. Set Date of First Delinquency from the missed due date and hold it there.
- P (single payment) is the right code instead of S when there is genuinely one payment at maturity rather than a recurring semi-annual schedule.
Common errors involving S
Vocabulary
Keep browsing
- All 11 terms frequency codes — the full set with categories and cross-field rules.
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- Terms Frequency field reference — position, length, and validation rules.
- Metro 2 format reference
See Terms Frequency Code S in your own file
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