Collateral.

This quote forwarded to me by a friend, reminds me of a story that did the WhatsApp rounds some time ago.

Our Public Sector Banks have been aggressively taking their banking services to rural India and publicising their offers widely.

One day, one weather-beaten farmer comes to a rural banker and asks for a loan to tide over the problems faced by him due to the failure of the monsoon that year.

The snobbish banker asks the farmer what he can offer as collateral and the farmer wants to know the meaning of the word. On being explained the process of taking a loan against a collateral, the farmer says that he has a couple of cows and small plot of agricultural land.

An agreement is reached, the farmer pledges his parcel of land, takes the money and leaves.

He returns much sooner than expected, clears the entire loan amount with interest and takes back the documents of his collateral. The surprised banker asks him how he managed to do that and the farmer says that he invested the loan in getting a pump to take out subterranean water to irrigate his field, successfully planted and sold a crop and has now come back to redeem the documents.

The impressed banker in turn suggests that the farmer deposits the surplus cash with the bank and has to explain all the benefits that the farmer will get out of such deposit.

The farmer looks up at the banker and asks him – “What collateral will you offer?”