Non-recourse factoring should not be confused with making a loan. When a lender decides to extend credit to a company based on assets, cash flows, and credit history, the borrower must recognize a liability to the lender, and the lender recognizes the borrower's promise to repay the loan as an asset. Factoring without recourse is a "sale" of a financial asset (the receivable), in which the factor assumes ownership of the asset and all of the risks associated with it, and the "seller" relinquishes any title to the asset "sold". An example of factoring is the credit card. Factoring is like a credit card where the bank (factor) is buying the debt of the customer without recourse to the seller; if the buyer doesn't pay the amount to the seller the bank cannot claim the money from the seller or the merchant, just as the bank in this case can only claim the money from the debt issuer. Factoring is different from invoice discounting, which usually doesn't imply informing the debt issuer about the assignment of debt, whereas in the case of factoring the debt issuer is usually notified in what is known as notification factoring. One more difference between the factoring and invoice discounting is that in case of factoring the seller assigns all receivables of a certain buyer(s) to the factor whereas in invoice discounting the borrower (the seller) assigns a receivable balance, not specific invoices. A factor is therefore more concerned with the credit-worthiness of the company's customers. The factoring transaction is often structured as a purchase of a financial asset, namely the accounts receivable. A non-recourse factor assumes the "credit risk" that an account will not collect due solely to the financial inability of account debtor to pay. In the United States, if the factor does not assume the credit risk on the purchased accounts, in most cases a court will recharacterize the transaction as a secured loan.