Wednesday, August 12, 2009

94:Business

Many banks in post-Renaissance Europe issued small, porcelain "borrower's tiles" to their creditworthy customers. Like credit cards, these tiles were imprinted with the owner's name, his credit limit, and the name of the bank. Each time the customer wanted to borrow money, he had to present the tile to the bank teller, who would compare the imprinted credit limit with how much the customer had already borrowed.
Which colloquial term comes from something to do with this practice?

1 comment:

CVK said...

Broke (However, I cant take credit - http://www.westegg.com/etymology/ )