Sunday, June 7, 2009

INTERMEDIATION AND PORTFOLIO DIVERSIFICATION

financial intermediaries do more than play the role of intermediaries between ultimate lenders (savers) and ultimate borrowers. They also perform a valuable role by offering savers an asset that is really a well-diversified portfolio of assets. for example, if a small saver were required to deal directly with with ultimate borrowers, such as perhaps a home buyer seeking mortgage money, the small saver essentially would be ' putting all his or her eggs in one basket" the small saver would end up with only one asset- a mortgage contract on one piece of property. having such a limited number of assets increase the risk of default and of losing the entire asset portfolio. the financial intermediary, such as a saving and loan association, can offer the small saver a reduction in risk through diversification. This is accomplished by pooling the excess funds of numerous small savers in order to purchase a large variety of assets from numerous ultimate borrowers. As a result, the small saver might end up with, say, $20,000 in a savings deposit, but implicitly the savers has ' purchased' a small fraction of each of thousands of mortgage contracts looked at another way, financial intermediaries allow savers to purchase assets that are relatively safe and more liquid and that also earn interest. for example, when a saver deposits money in his or her account at the local credit union, that saver is implicitly purchasing shares in the credit union. the financial intermediaries in turn purchase assets, such as mortgages and land, which are sold by the ultimate borrowers .

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