Glossary L

L2TP: Stands for: Layer 2 tunneling protocol. Protocol used to support virtual private networks (VPNs)

LAN: Stands for: Local area network. A computer network covering a small area, generally a building or group of buildings.

Late payment: Most charge and credit card bills list the date on which payments are due. If you do not pay by the due date, the account is considered past due and you may be charged a fee. Your credit report may show late payments, and if you have made a habit of paying late, creditors may be dissuaded from granting additional credit.

Leverage: The act of intentionally taking on debt to expand the size or scope of your company.

Liability: Refers to the responsibility for charges to an account. Generally, a cardholder agrees to be responsible for any charges to his or her account, including purchases, fees and finance charges. If the cardholder allows someone else to make charges to his or her account (through, for example, an additional card), the cardholder is still responsible for paying the bill. Two people who apply for a card together may both be liable for the entire balance. Your liability is described in the cardholder agreement provided by the issuer. Be sure to read it carefully.

Lien: The legal right to hold on to a piece of intangible property that secures someone's debt on personal or real property. If the person or company owing the debt does not pay, the property can be taken or sold.

Line of Credit: A financial institution's promise to lend your business the maximum of a certain amount of money during a specified period. For example, you might receive a $50,000 line of credit during the first quarter of any given year.

Link: A component of a hypertext document that, when clicked on by a mouse, takes the user to either another document or a different section of the current document.

ListServ: Also known as: List Server. A program that facilitates a subscription-based list that distributes email to the members, generally on a particular subject matter.

Loyalty Card: A plastic card that identifies participants in a loyalty program. Loyalty programs reward cardholders with benefits as they buy more merchandise.

LPAR: Logical partition. A section of a disk that is not one of the primary partitions. Defined in a data block pointed to by the extended partition.