[Tarang]

Cheese is very interesting because it's a food!

There are also 'Gold loans' in India where you can give up your jewellery for a loan. What's interesting is that there are specialised banks that do this rather than an ordinary bank taking it up as collateral.

I guess other items that could work this way more interestingly than gold are whisky & wines.

[1] http://www.manappuram.com/goldloan/

[joenathan]

We call that a pawn shop here in the states :-)

[Tarang]

Pawn shops aren't exclusive to the states.

I guess there's more of a distinction since the types of collateral the other institutions take are more specialized.

The other distinction is i'm guessing these specialized institutions are going to use your credit rating against you when you don't pay up.

I don't think they sell hocked these items on their desks either.