The Bank That Lends Against Cheese

In the hills of northern Italy stands a bank that will accept, as loan collateral, nothing more exotic than cheese: wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano. Its vault holds more than half a million of them, each one still the property of the local dairy farmer who made it, held by the bank only until the loan is settled and the wheel finally sells.

V kopcoch severného Talianska stojí banka, ktorá ako záruku za pôžičku prijíma nič exotickejšie než syr: bochníky parmezánu. V jej trezore ich leží viac ako pol milióna, každý z nich stále patrí miestnemu mliekarovi, ktorý ho vyrobil, a banka ho drží len dovtedy, kým sa pôžička nesplatí a bochník sa napokon nepredá.

Rather than wait years for a wheel to age properly and eventually sell, a farmer can hand it straight to the bank against a loan, and the bank advances a large share of its eventual value straight away, well before the cheese has finished maturing.

Namiesto toho, aby roky čakal, kým bochník riadne dozreje a nakoniec sa predá, môže ho farmár rovno odovzdať banke výmenou za pôžičku, a banka mu okamžite vyplatí veľkú časť jeho budúcej hodnoty, dávno predtým, než syr dozreje.

For as long as the loan runs, the bank ages and stores the wheels itself, checking each one regularly and rotating it like the custodian of a vast lending library built out of cheese, moving the older wheels forward as they near the day they are ready to sell. Once the cheese finally sells at full price, the farmer settles the loan, and the whole system starts again with the next harvest.

Kým pôžička trvá, banka bochníky sama zreje a skladuje, pravidelne ich kontroluje a presúva ako správca obrovskej požičovne postavenej zo syra, pričom staršie bochníky posúva dopredu, ako sa blížia k dňu, keď budú pripravené na predaj. Keď sa syr napokon predá za plnú cenu, farmár pôžičku splatí a celý systém sa začína nanovo s ďalšou úrodou.