On 25/9/20 5:02 am, Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Sep 2020 04:30:02 +1000, Alex Goodwin
> <xxxxxx@multitel.com.au> wrote:
>
>> I have yet to fully introduce the effects lack of faster-than-travel
>> comms has had on banking.  That should be interesting.
> It is likely that your banking model would have little resemblance to
> today's, and would look a lot more like that of the late-Medieval/
> early-Renaissance period in Europe - letters of credit or equivalent
> carried between "branches" which would be owned by the same "family" or
> corporation. Balancing accounts would involve shipping valuta between
> branches. This can involve a "network of trust" if, for example, the ship
> is going from Terra to Ish Kabibble, but no bank has branches on both; they
> may have to detour to Timbuck Two, where TerraBank/Timbuck will accept the
> letter of credit from TerraBank/Terra, and arrange a letter of credit from
> TimBank, which _does_ have a branch on Ish Kabibble.
>
> It's also possible that the ship, instead of dealing with LoC, may end up
> carrying valuta itself.
>
> Which opens up Opportunities for the referee...

GT: Far Trader did flesh this out, and I'll probably steal (even more)
from said book.

In your example, wouldn't TimBank be a correspondent bank of TerraBank ?

Eddles did WTF (and then, complain) at the 3I's deliberate lack of a
central bank.

As for the chain of deals/LoC... that depends on how sadistic I want to
get.  You can only lead your players up the garden path so many times
before they say "to hell with this, let's go play something else".

I first ran into "valuta" in GURPS Cyberworld (and then "The Moon Is A
Harsh Mistress") - in G:CW context, was any reasonably-hard currency
that you wanted to get paid in, and hang onto.  Between Cyberworld and
TMIAHM, thought was Russian term.  Is apparently Italian.

Conversely, "dengi" was somewhat above bog roll - rather soft currency
that you wanted to pay other people in, and offload as quickly as possible.