Fact Box: Caratometer ( Karatmeter )
Corporation Bank to use ‘caratometers’ in order to check purity of Gold pledged
Corporation Bank planning to use ‘cartometers’ in order to check the purity of Gold pledged.
Corporation Bank’s gold loan portfolio more than doubled to Rs 3,662 crore as of December 2012 from Rs 1,585 crore as at December 2011. To encourage boost agriculture lending, the Corporation bank has opened ‘gold loan shoppe’ at 7 places.
Karatmeter (also spelt as caratometer):
- A scientific and non-destructive method for testing the purity of Gold.
- Internationally used device.
- Used as a confirmatory test (after the assayer gives his report on the quality of gold), thus assuring the purity of gold pledged with the bank by borrowers.
- Uses X-rays to give an exact reading of the purity of gold in about 3 minutes.
- However, it only checks the purity of the gold on the top layer.
- Most showrooms across India use it.
- Other ways to determine the gold content include – melting Gold down, the touchstone method or XRF (x-ray fluorescence) method.
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Month: Current Affairs - April, 2013