Nachiket Mor, who was then one of the vice presidents of ICICI Bank, once described to us what he had thought was an absolutely brilliant way to get farmers to repay their agricultural loan. Before disbursing each loan, he would ask them for a postdated check for the same amount. The great insight was that if the farmer did not repay, the bank would then be able to send the police to collect on the check, because not honoring a check is a criminal offense. This worked for a while, but then it began to unravel. When the police realized that they had hundreds of bounced checks to track, they
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