![]() Everyone else paid on time, every time.īut it's not as if O'Brien's work is easy. ![]() This year, he says, one guy was a few days late on one month's mortgage payment. He's made countless thousands of loans - with no problems. O'Brien has been doing this work for 20 years. "So, I'll stretch my neck more for with them than maybe I will somewhere else." "We've never lost any money on an Amish deal," he says. The Amish think that missing a payment brings shame - not just on them, but on their whole family, their whole community. The Amish live well within their means - no splurging on iPods or HDTVs, no dinners out that they really can't afford. O'Brien says the Amish are less risky debtors than people with access to all the tools of modern banking. "I'm also interested in who his wife's father was. "I'll find out who his dad was," he says. In most banks, a man who wants to buy a farm but has no credit history, no FICO score and not even a driver's license would be unlikely bet. " 'Well,' she says, 'you don't get out a two-row corn picker for a little nubbin,' " he says, rolling out a joke that I think is supposed to be dirty. He loves telling the jokes he hears from his Amish customers, even if outsiders don't get the punchline. ![]() He's something of a Santa Claus, with a big beard and a belly laugh. O'Brien, who's not Amish himself, meets with his Amish customers only face-to-face. As the head of agricultural lending, he's responsible for about $100 million in loans. O'Brien says 95 percent of his customers at the Hometowne Heritage Bank are Amish. In this community, one banker stands above all others: Bill O'Brien. There are no Amish bankers, no Amish-owned banks, so they turn to local banks for help. Such a large purchase requires bargaining, and means working with a banker. They don't use credit cards, instead paying for everything with cash or check.Ībout the only time the Amish use credit is when they buy a farm. In fact, most Amish don't have much debt at all. One major difference is that Amish people don't take out a buggy loan. The scene, in many ways, could be from any ordinary automobile auction. I ask whether your father buys it for you. One young man tells me a typical Amish kid gets his first buggy at 16 or 17. Amish teenagers kick the tires and check out all the new extras, like the fiberglass wind screen and retractable cup holders carved out of maple wood. Each buggy has a big sign in the window announcing it as a brand-new 2008 model. Calling through a portable loudspeaker, he moved among dozens of buggies lined up in a muddy field. One day this year, hundreds Amish men clumped around an auctioneer. For many Amish here, their first major piece of property is a horse and buggy. They live within their means, and borrow from people who expect to get paid back. In the Old Order Amish community of Lancaster County, Penn., most people use credit only when they buy a farm. But in at least one corner of the country, the banking system is doing just fine. Americans have been hearing for months now about the devastating problems facing U.S.
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