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A coupon is a ticket or document that can be exchanged for a financial discount on a product. Customarily, coupons are issued by manufacturers of consumer packaged goods or by retailers, to be used in retail stores as a part of sales promotions. They are often widely distributed through mail, magazines, and newspapers.
Coupons are also "attached" to bonds, either physically (as with old bonds) or electronically. Each coupon represents a predetermined payment promised to the bond-holder in return for his or her loan of money to the bond-issuer. (The bond-holder is typically not the original lender, but receives this payment anyway.) The coupon rate (the amount promised per dollar of the face value of the bond) helps determine the interest rate or yield on the bond.
The phrase "coupon clipper" can refer to either a bond-owner or someone who uses coupons from newspapers.
Another type of coupon is the trading stamp.
It was used as a temporary currency for some former Soviet countries, especially Moldova (used until 1993, replaced by Moldovan lei), and Ukraine (replaced by hryvnia in 1996) after they became independent.
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