KOCHI: If Kerala’s non-banking financiers were a country, they would rank 16th in the world for gold reserves — right after Portugal and ahead of the United Kingdom, Spain and Austria. Together, Kerala-based non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) now hold a glittering 381 tonnes of gold, a stash that surpasses the official reserves of several European nations and testifies to the state’s enduring obsession with the yellow metal.

The combined holdings of major gold-loan giants — Muthoot Finance (208 tonnes), Manappuram Finance (56.4 tonnes), Muthoot FinCorp (43.69 tonnes), Kerala State Financial Enterprises or KSFE (67.22 tonnes), and Indel Money (around 6 tonnes) — together outweigh the gold reserves of the UK (310 tonnes) and Spain (282 tonnes).

In pure numbers, that is gold worth wel

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