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GLOSSARYTERMS AS A CREDIT DESK USES THEM

Livestock as security

How does a bank take livestock as security, and why does the number keep changing?

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BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED

// THE SHORT ANSWER

Livestock is personal property, so a lender takes security over it under a general or specific security agreement, registered on the PPSR in New Zealand and Australia; in England and Wales a farmer can also grant an agricultural charge. The difficulty is that the collateral breeds, dies, is sold and is replaced, so the lender relies on stock reconciliations, national animal-tracing records and periodic counts rather than a fixed list. Values swing with saleyard and schedule prices and the season, and stock can be sold quickly, which is why a lender watches sale proceeds as closely as head counts.

BASIS  Practitioner judgment from sixteen years in commercial banking, set out in How Bankers Think (Highbank Press, 2026). Every borrower on this site is a composite constructed for teaching, not a client. The market is mid-market commercial lending as practised in New Zealand and Australia; where a convention differs elsewhere, the page says so.

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