Lamna offers fast money for your Aston Martin

Pawning your valuables for quick cash is not a practice typically associated with the well-heeled but it seems even the wealthy are now resorting to putting up their prized possessions as security to alleviate short-term cash flow constraints.

Lamna Financial, a non-bank lender that specialises in disbursing short-term loans to high net worth people who can put up valuable assets as collateral, has disbursed more than R1bn to 7,500 customers since it started operating in 2013. However, it’s the extraordinary array of assets the company accepts as security in exchange for loans that is interesting...