Banks

[Captain Jack]

A general discussion about Banks. Do not list possible bugs here, use the appropriate forum threads.

To fuel the discussion, we will list some ideas we have here. Specifically, we want to accomplish some objectives for Banks. These are:

-Few Banks available or Banks that are available, are active Banks
-Banks are not used to serve a single person; their owner
-We want to encourage the usage of loans.
-We want to encourage the creation of Loan Shark banks.

I have just created a few tweaks that can happen right now, without the need of excessive development. You can check it here:
Banks proposed Tweaks

We have some more ideas though, for addon features that can help greatly. Here is a simple list (FEEL FREE TO PROPOSE YOUR OWN):

BANK Limits

Max Bank Balance for banker: Bank Level * 100M (This is doubled when Bank Level is 15 or greater).
Max Bank Balance for clients: Bank Level * 100M * 2
Max Account Balance for clients: Bank Level * 2.5M (Can be configured downwards from bankers)
Minimum Loan Duration: 7 Days
Maximum Loan Duration: 730 Days

-Loan Insurance for players with less than 1000 turns.
To encourage loans to new players, we are ready to offer loan insurance to bankers, directly from the "game treasury". How it will work:
1.It will be relative to Bank Level. The insurance level will be 5% per level. This means that a level 20 Bank will get a 100% insurance.
2.It will be given only for the players that turn inactive. So, if you give a loan to a newbie and then he becomes inactive, you will take your money back and the loan will be removed. As an inactivity limit, we will use 30 days.
3.The insurance will work on the money the banker paid and has not took back and it will not give any profit (no need to create exploitation holes)
4.The insurance will take in mind debtors account balance which means that if the account has 200k and he took 100k, insurance will not be activated at all as the Banker already has the money missing in an indirect way.


-Ability to use something as collateral for the loan you ask
-Ships can be used, through Private Marina only.
-Gold Bars perhaps but we will need to see how. Perhaps we can add a building (a pawn shop) that will do this thing and it will be run by players. Banks and Pawn Shops cooperation will be possible. Perhaps this way would be also better for ships as well.
-The Bank Account funds of a middle person who can be the guarantee man.

I will post more as they come to me.
Meanwhile, Shoot your own

[Diplomatist]

How about joint stock banks? That is, banks with more than one owner? Collaboration between two or more players will enable quicker development of banks and for them to gain higher levels.

Rules would have to be proposed perhaps making a managing partner and the other sleeping partners.

[Captain Jack]

How about joint stock banks? That is, banks with more than one owner? Collaboration between two or more players will enable quicker development of banks and for them to gain higher levels.

Rules would have to be proposed perhaps making a managing partner and the other sleeping partners.

Co-ownership has been discussed during design phase. Like I said then, this can be a possible addon. Perhaps though only in the form of shareholders, where Banks will pay out dividends to them. Surely not among priorities due to complexity and nature of the feature (yet one more economic feature?)

[Mr. Rothschild]

It is a great risk as a banker to give out loans in Avonmora. It's quite easy for a player to receive a loan request, withdraw all the funds and never look back. Now i understand many have given up on lending from their establishments for this reason, or just may not wish to undertake it at all. However there are a few of us interested in undertaking this role as a banker and still wish to provide the loan service.

I was thinking about proposing a minimum withdrawal amount that can be established upon creating a loan offer. For this, a banker would be able to set a maximum amount a player can withdraw from the bank he/she received their loan per set amount of days.

Example, being
Loan Amount = 2,000,000
Duration = 30 days
Interest = ?
Compound = ?
Installment Cycle = every 3 days
Min Amount can withdraw = $200,000
Min amount can be withdrawn every = 2 days

This of course would only be in affect for the loan contract, and not create a minimum withdrawal on the players funds already saved.


By doing this, bankers would receive time to monitor their loans, and if payments aren't being made, the account can be frozen until payments are again being received. Reducing the risk in losing funds so easily, that we are willing to issue on behalf of helping players trying to expand. This could also bring about larger loans being issued.

[Sir Colchian Niveus]

i like the idea. that would protect bankers a bit. +1

[Sir Henry Morgan]

Aye, true, but we can already "sort of" do this. Although someone requests a loan, we can offer a different amount, lower or higher, depending upon how worthy we feel the risk of such a loan be....

Instead of one big loan, go with several smaller loans spread out over time.

This will do just about the same thing.

[Trixikilikili]

That's a good workaround for it. +1

[Mr. Rothschild]

Aye, true, but we can already "sort of" do this. Although someone requests a loan, we can offer a different amount, lower or higher, depending upon how worthy we feel the risk of such a loan be....

Instead of one big loan, go with several smaller loans spread out over time.

This will do just about the same thing.

This is true, somthing I had not really considered.

[Captain Jack]

I know that some bankers are actively changing credits to gold coins. When I first found out, it sounded like a good idea to happen to me as it gives a player-controlled exchange rate that can only be good for the game.

While we were discussing ships market, we came down to a new problem regarding gold coins payment. Ourselves were already uneasy on adding two forms of payments for the same product. It is, sort to say a bit inconvenient. Both for development but mostly for player control.

The new idea is to allow bankers do what they do in the shadows, do it with a scripted way.

How?

-Banker will choose where he wants to buy or sell credits. (he can do both if he wants)
-Banker will select the exchange rate he desires (no limits, really).
-Banker will then select the maximum pool (for sale or for buy).

Clients will then enter the banks (or a central page, depends if we want to make it hard for the client or not) and do the exchanges.

Then, futurely we can improve the system.

There are more ways to do this. Skipping bankers altogether but this would create problems at treasure at hand is lootable. Therefore whatever way, should involve banks.

[Captain Jack]

1.5.86: -Bankers are now able to define the maximum account balance they will allow for each client.

The limit for max account balance remains and it is 2.5M per level. What bankers can now do, is that they can define it to a decreased number. For example, a level 10 Bank allows 25M accounts. The banker might want to keep this lower to 20M per client.

Forthcoming updates for Banks:
-Level 15 Banks or greater will no longer suffer the limit of half bank balance for owner. (ie, instead of Bank Level * 100M, they will get the Bank Level * 100M * 2 that clients get).
-Level 10 Banks or greater will be able to sell Gold Coins for Credits (Money Exhanger)
-Level 15 Banks or greater will be able to sell Credits for Gold Coins