1、2100 单词， 3368 汉字 出处 : Abdul Ghafar Ismail,Nor Zakiah Ahmad,1997.“Pawnshop as an instrument of microenterprise credit in Malaysia”.International Journal of Social Economics, vol.24.November.pp.1343-1352. 原文： Pawnshop as an instrument of microenterprise credit in Malaysia There are no official estimat
2、es of the importance of pawnshops as a source of credit in the Malaysian financial market. The Central Bank of Malaysia does not collect data on pawnbroking and does not include an estimate of pawnshop credit in its statistics on total domestic credit. However, by exploring the data provided by a fe
3、w pawnshops, it can be seen that the total pawnshop credit is estimated about RM125 million at the end of 1995 (of which RM67 million is new credit). For comparison purposes, the outstanding credit at the end of 1995 amounted to RM306.6 billion, of which RM174.2 billion was accounted by commercial b
4、anks loans and RM62.7 billion by finance companies. By these measures, pawnshops appear to deserve the status as a small bank as they are the source for only about 0.03 per cent of new credit in the Malaysian financial market. By other measures, pawnbroking clearly plays a key role in the Malaysian
5、financial market. At the end of 1995, there were 282 pawnshops in Malaysia or about one pawnshop for every five branches of commercial banks. Moreover, in that year, the number of borrowers amounted to about 1,015,200 (with an average of 300 customers per month). The average loan is only RM803, ther
6、efore pawnshop lending as a percentage of total credit is much less significant than as a percentage of the population served (in 1995, the total Malaysian population was 19 million). Beyond these aggregate measures, pawnshops are also very important to thousands of Malaysians, especially the low in
7、come group ( RM500) and less educated (secondary level), whose credit risks exclude them from formal financial markets. A survey by Ragayah (1986) shows that the occupation of borrowers can be classified into three groups, i.e. housewives, private and government employees. These customers turn to pa
8、wnshops for credit because they are not eligible to borrow from formal financial markets. Other customers use pawnshops for their convenience； such as for household and emergency expenses. The borrowed amount can be disbursed in a few minutes and with very few questions asked. Both conventional- and
9、 Islamic-based pawnshops, are separately regulated by Pawnshop Act (1972) and Pawnshop Act (1972) (with several amendments). Although, the acts vary, a general pattern could be discovered. First, when a customer pawns goods, terms of the loan contract must be specified in a receipt, a copy of which
10、the customer receives. The receipt states the customers name and address, a description of the collateral, amount lent, maturity date and the amount that must be paid to redeem the assets. Detailed account of the assets, amount and maturity are provided in Table I. The Islamic-based pawnshops only a
11、llow gold to be pawned and the amount lent depends on the value of the gold. Second, the interest rate and other charges are determined by each pawnbroker. Normally, the interest rate is fixed at 2 per cent per month. This rate is expected to increase if the maturity of the loan is more than one mon
12、th. In the Islamic-based pawnshop, the loan granted is based on two concepts, i.e. loan without interest, but the borrower pays service charge and keeping valuable goods by guarantee. The deposit fee is based on the value of gold, as shown in Table II. This fee is charged differently by each pawnbro
13、ker. In the case of a loan default, the collateral becomes the property of the pawnshop after the loan is overdue by a specific period of time, usually up to six months. The Islamic-based pawnshop regulations require any surplus from the sale of the gold over the amount owed to the pawnbroker, inclu
14、ding accumulated deposit fee and any costs related to the sale, to be returned to the customer. Default rates of 5 per cent to 10 per cent are reported in the states . Therefore, default rates as a percentage of the number of loans are higher than default rates as a percentage of the amount of loans
15、, indicating higher default rates on smaller loans. Because pawnbrokers lend only on the basis of collateral left in the brokers possession, brokers do not gather information to assess credit risk but, rather, focus on properly evaluating the collateral. Once this procedure is determined, a cash loa
16、n is advanced immediately on the completion of the pawn receipt. A typical loan processing lasts less than one hour. Hence, it is normal to see a customer wishing to pledge a precious asset and completing the transaction within a few minutes provided that there is no suspicion that the assets may be
17、 stolen. In most transactions, pawnbrokers make loans with maturities up to six months. However, it is commonly understood for customers to renew these loans by paying extra fees or interest on the loan extension. In certain circumstances, customers may redeem within a week or two. In fact, as menti
18、oned by Bouman and Houtman (1988), there are cases where money is borrowed not once but repeatedly and loans are made piecemeal for extremely short periods. A pawnbroker lends a customer a percentage of the value which the pawnbroker believes the collateral would bring in a compensation. The loan to
19、 the collateral ratio varies over time and across pawnshops, but a loan of about 50 per cent of the value of the collateral is common. Furthermore pawnbrokers offer twice the loan limit of the commercial banks while seldom imposing a maximum limit on loan size. This means that the pawnbroker almost
20、always makes a one-time profit from a default. However, pawnbrokers prefer the customer to redeem the collateral. A customer who loses his/her collateral may feel uncomfortable towards the pawnshop. Therefore, pawnbrokers prefer to lend repeatedly to a customer rather than gain a one-time profit fro
21、m a default. Normally pawned items include jewellery and electronic assets. These items maintain their value over a reasonable period of time and are easy to store, especially jewellery. However, in the Islamic-based pawnshop, gold is the permitted item. The increasing amount of credit given by the financial institutions, as discussed in section IV(a), shows the aggregate effect of increasing capital requirement. The number of SSEs is expected to increase into the foreseeable future as a result of industrialization. The structural changes accompanying this development are the
