The escrow guarantees the terms of the escrow are met. They use their reputation to cause both parties to believe that the funds will be released in accordance with the escrow agreement.
Ok, I use insure, you use guarantee.
The borrower is paying for a guarantee he will get his collateral back from a dishonest lender.
If you and the lender are the same person, you cannot offer that guarantee! But you still charge him for the guarantee!
You are basically building up a reputation of dishonesty.
One last argument would be that I make a loan to someone, and they trust me to hold their collateral personally, then I would be able to charge a higher interest rate then if they were borrowing from no-name newbie when escrow would need to be used (an incrementally higher interest rate so that the total amount the borrower repays is higher when borrowing from me verses when borrowing from no-name newbie).
Either way, as I previously mentioned, I am not going to ever further comment on any potential alt that anyone suspects that I am one way or another. I would also recommend that panthers not further comment on him being the same person as myself (and the same as anyone else who is claimed to be me).