What Is a Treasury Lock?

A Treasury lock is a hedging tool used to manage interest-rate risk by effectively securing the current day's interest rates on federal government securities, to cover future expenses that will be financed by borrowing.

A Treasury lock can also be referred to as a bond lock.
Key Takeaways

A Treasury lock is an agreement between the company issuing a security and the investor in the security that holds or locks the price or yield of the security.
The purpose of the lock is to account for the fluctuation in Treasury bond yield that can occur between when a company proposes a transaction and when the transaction is finalized.
The strategy guarantees a set return for an investor, or creates an interest rate hedge the investor can use.
The participants in a Treasury lock either pay or receive the difference between the lock price and market interest rates.