Business Lessons

Title: Perception of Good Credit

Some years ago, an interview of Mr. Dan Oppenheimer of the D. & A. Oppenheimer Bank appeared in the San Antonio newspaper in which the reporter asked Dan Oppenheimer why he had continued to loan money to Mr Gurinsky

when Mr. Gurinsky had gone Bankrupt

and been legally discharged from the obligation to pay Oppenheimer’s Bank 4 times,

to which Mr. Oppenheimer replied:

“Who is a Better Credit Risk, the Man who goes Bankrupt and pays you Anyway,

or the Man with a Clean Credit Record?”

WHAT THIS MEANS TO ME:

What really matters to a Lendor is the Perception that he WILL be Paid

… and the Stronger that is,
the more likely you are to get your loan.

Now in these current days of “Institutional Lendors,

“this is a little less likely to be as true as it was when banking was done on a more personal level,

but it is still the way enlightened bankers think.

(see also Borrowing and Paying Back)