New Delhi, June 12 -- You may find yourself without cash planning for travel, home renovations, medical bills, or schooling, and may contemplate a personal loan or line of credit. While personal loans and lines of credit are both financial instruments that allow you to access funds with some degree of liquidity, they do operate in very different ways.

In order to help you make up your mind about which loan option fits your financial goals the best we will look at the differences between the two.

A personal loan is a sum of money that banks or financial institutions lend to you upfront. The loan is repaid over a certain period of time, typically between one and five years, in equal monthly payments (EMI).

A more flexible option is a lin...