Knight Corporation recently issued 210-day commercial paper with a face value of $325,000 and a simple interest rate of 9 percent. The company paid a transaction fee equal to 0.4 percent of the issue, which was taken out of the issue amount before the company received any funds. What is the commercial paper's effective annual rate (EAR) assuming there are 360 days in a year (Round your answer to two decimal places.)

a) 9.36%
b) 9.04%
c) 8.80%
d) 8.64%