'Dirty' money

[McPerth]

There is also the problem of time lag with Jumping. I suspect that Letters of Credit are going to be used a lot, with some means of keeping them from being forged. I think that a fair number of your passengers on Free Traders are going to be financial people along to verify the Letter of Credit to the destination bank, or merchants just making sure that they actually get the profit from the sale and delivery of their cargo.

And what's a bank note or bill if not a Letter of Credit to a Central Bank (despite being considered cash)?

I remember when I was a child (probably before Traveller even existed) the Spanish bank notes have written on them "El banco de España pagará al protador 100/500/1000 pesetas" (translated: The Bank of Spain will pay to the bearer 100/500/1000 pesetas), so clearly showing that it was a letter of credit to it. This sentece disappeared from the bank notes somtime in the 70s, IIRC...

given that the pay ranges from Cr300 to Cr2000 or so... and about 1/10 are officers at Cr1000-Cr2000, while Enlisted are Cr300 to Cr1000...

Let's assume the average officer is Cr1400 (O3), and Enlisted is a PO3 drawing Cr500, we get Cr5900 per 10... that's only 847 bodies.

Might be a weekly payroll for a subsector.

Well, the adventure says:

(...) his fleet had arried a quarterly fleet payroll: three months wadges for all Imperial naval personnel in the sector

Of course, MCr 5 is by no means enough, but this may be just the part this specific ship carried, or the part that is left usable of it, I don't know (or more probably the writer of the adventure thought that more than this was too much a reward for the players, but that's metagame thinking).

Again, in any case, it shows clearly that in OTU canon cash is still used, and that's why I brought this adventure to bear, despite any flaws it may have.

Another (IMHO) example of evidence that some form of cash is used we can find in LBB7:Merchan Prince, page 45, among posible cargoes a ship may carry:

Units of Exchange: Sometimes shipments between worlds consist of money itself.

(bold original)

This also appears (carbón copied) in MT:RM, page 48.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

And what's a bank note or bill if not a Letter of Credit to a Central Bank (despite being considered cash)?

I remember when I was a child (probably before Traveller even existed) the Spanish bank notes have written on them "El banco de España pagará al protador 100/500/1000 pesetas" (translated: The Bank of Spain will pay to the bearer 100/500/1000 pesetas), so clearly showing that it was a letter of credit to it. This sentece disappeared from the bank notes somtime in the 70s, IIRC...

Of course, MCr 5 is by no means enough, but this may be just the part this specific ship carried, or the part that is left usable of it, I don't know (or more probably the writer of the adventure thought that more than this was too much a reward for the players, but that's metagame thinking).

Again, in any case, it shows clearly that in OTU canon cash is still used, and that's why I brought this adventure to bear, despite any flaws it may have.

Another (IMHO) example of evidence that some form of cash is used we can find in LBB7:Merchan Prince, page 45, among posible cargoes a ship may carry:

(bold original)

This also appears (carbón copied) in MT:RM, page 48.

UK Banknotes stil bear the words "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of <VALUEr> POUNDS"
.


Strictly speaking, unless their is some element of the Imperial Members Charter that requires a planet to honour Imperial Credit, then all ICs are just fait money taken purely because you believe it is worth the value you give it.


for whats its worth, the MgT Core books make clear that the 3I produces physical notes using some complex, hard to falsify method. Also, major companies both have existing lines of credit established, along with a ability to "bank on the name" and arrange IOU type credit based on the fact that a major megacorp isn't going to fold anytime soon and will honour the bill.

 

[Timerover51]

Up to 1968, the U.S. had silver certificates that could be redeemed for silver coins on demand, and the U.S. was still coining silver up to 1970. Saying that a Tech Level 7 society would not be using either silver or gold coinage seems a bit much, considering the popularity for a long time of the Kruger Rand as a gold investment.

The original post was asking how did we handle currency in our universe, whether on or off the books. As in my universe, their is no Imperium or dominant polity, electronic transfers on banks are not the norm nor are Letters of Credit. Cash in the form of gold or silver, or cargo for sale, is the norm.

 

[whartung]

You have to be using cash, because electronic money simply won't keep up with you.

Not in the civilized worlds you won't. You'll use a credit card affiliated with a Galactic Banking system.

You create you account in one system, then, out bound on the next mail shipment to the neighboring systems, a notice goes out of the existence of the account, and it's credit rating. Since odds are high this wave of information will propagate out faster than you will, by the time you arrive at another system, the local banks will have your account on file so that your Credit Card is ready to use.

The accounts can have a total credit limit along with a weekly limit. i.e. you have a total limit of 100,000Cr, and a weekly limit of 10,000Cr to help prevent you from grossly overextending yourself.

But the banks are set up to deal with freeloaders, fraudsters, etc. etc. just like they are today. It's just a part of doing business. Theres a lot of room for "float" as transactions clear the system, but, in the end, the bank promises the payments to sate the vendors, and the bank limits it liability by overall credit values. If the bank eventually catches up with you, then so be it.

But most likely any C+ Starport will have affiliated branches, even if the world itself doesn't have infrastructure to support the credit card transaction -- you can simply get some cash at the local Starport when you arrive.

This is a primary job of the banks to manage the complexities of monies moving around like this in order to empower you to perform your business more easily. And since the banks get a cut of every transaction, the more transactions the better.

 

[jawillroy]

The accounts can have a total credit limit along with a weekly limit. i.e. you have a total limit of 100,000Cr, and a weekly limit of 10,000Cr to help prevent you from grossly overextending yourself.

SO. What's the annual fee on that sucker? Bet it packs a wallop. Killer interest, I'd reckon. Lost in the annals: Little Black Book 9, "Astronomical Credit Card Debt"

TBH, I would much rather run or play a game where you have to run around with Space Doubloons. I mean, I got credit cards taking a chunk out of my whole life, why'm I gonna bring that into my fantasy world?

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

Not in the civilized worlds you won't. You'll use a credit card affiliated with a Galactic Banking system.

You create you account in one system, then, out bound on the next mail shipment to the neighboring systems, a notice goes out of the existence of the account, and it's credit rating. Since odds are high this wave of information will propagate out faster than you will, by the time you arrive at another system, the local banks will have your account on file so that your Credit Card is ready to use.

The accounts can have a total credit limit along with a weekly limit. i.e. you have a total limit of 100,000Cr, and a weekly limit of 10,000Cr to help prevent you from grossly overextending yourself.

But the banks are set up to deal with freeloaders, fraudsters, etc. etc. just like they are today. It's just a part of doing business. Theres a lot of room for "float" as transactions clear the system, but, in the end, the bank promises the payments to sate the vendors, and the bank limits it liability by overall credit values. If the bank eventually catches up with you, then so be it.

But most likely any C+ Starport will have affiliated branches, even if the world itself doesn't have infrastructure to support the credit card transaction -- you can simply get some cash at the local Starport when you arrive.

This is a primary job of the banks to manage the complexities of monies moving around like this in order to empower you to perform your business more easily. And since the banks get a cut of every transaction, the more transactions the better.

I'm sure that works fine in the Core, or other areas with high volumes of traffic to move the mail about, but out in the Marches, where many worlds may only get a few ships a month (and maybe only 1 mail equipped ship), and many starports are D or E standard, it may not work so well. And what of worlds that are not worth the banks cost of setting up a local branch office?


That, and "shady, living hand-to-mouth free trader crew" are the sort of people who struggle to get credit anyway, due to their relatively poor means and ease of them trying to skip out, or fake payments (bear in mind the players are going to need to get some form of receipt for any repayments of credit, otherwise they may get stopped at multiple systems with demands of payment of the same debt.

And, as you observe, you still need physical cash for those low TL worlds that cant support a electronic payment system.

 

[gchuck]

'Dirty' Money

IMTU that would be a "sliver."

Like it lots! Consider it stolen!

 

[BlackBat242]

Up to 1968, the U.S. had silver certificates that could be redeemed for silver coins on demand, and the U.S. was still coining silver up to 1970. Saying that a Tech Level 7 society would not be using either silver or gold coinage seems a bit much, considering the popularity for a long time of the Kruger Rand as a gold investment.

The last year they were printed was 1964.
23 June 1968 was the last day they could be redeemed for actual silver.

Here is a 1957 $1 note:

 

[whartung]

SO. What's the annual fee on that sucker? Bet it packs a wallop. Killer interest, I'd reckon. Lost in the annals: Little Black Book 9, "Astronomical Credit Card Debt"

It doesn't have to cost much of anything.

Y'all make this sound like it's a new idea, but it's no different than how credit cards used to work back in the day -- pre-electronic.

Back then, you present the card to the merchant, he notes the details of the transaction on a piece of paper, and then he stuffs the paper in a drawer.

Later, he sends that piece of paper to the CC company and then they send him a check. This happens over a period of days and weeks. The CC company doesn't get is money until almost a month later.

The entire purpose of the CC company is to cover the float on payments like these. The CC company ensures the vendor that they'll be paid, since they just let something walk out the door with nothing more than a slip of paper to show for it. Even if the customer cheats the CC company, the vendor gets paid. The CC company is managing the risk as well (and in fact offers risk management as a service to the customer as well as the vendor).

It can take 2 months for a transaction to fully clear. And That's OK. That's what the CC company charges 2-3% for on each transaction.

And in the end, at a consumer level, recall that while space travel may be ubiquitous, it's not cheap. A ship's captain has a hard enough time when he skips payments, the crew will have a similar issue. If a customer flees out of jurisdiction, well, that's just a risk the CC company takes and is factored in. MOST people won't flee on principal (they pay back their debts), most folks won't flee simply because they can't (too expensive) and most folks won't flee because they don't want to (they like where they live, they like their job, etc.).

These are all things the CC companies deal with today, at scale. Is there room for fraud due to the float in the system? Probably, but with information traveling at the speed of travel, it's actually pretty hard for traveling people to out race bank information, save perhaps to the most fringe worlds, and even then it's a dead end. You can always run away, it's very hard to come back though.



On TL8+ worlds, you get instant verification via the local bank, then the banks reconcile though larger, bulk transactions with the interstellar system.

TBH, I would much rather run or play a game where you have to run around with Space Doubloons. I mean, I got credit cards taking a chunk out of my whole life, why'm I gonna bring that into my fantasy world?[/QUOTE]

I'm sure that works fine in the Core, or other areas with high volumes of traffic to move the mail about, but out in the Marches, where many worlds may only get a few ships a month (and maybe only 1 mail equipped ship), and many starports are D or E standard, it may not work so well. And what of worlds that are not worth the banks cost of setting up a local branch office?

Then those worlds don't take the CC, and you have to use cash. How is this a big deal? It doesn't disprove the system -- at all, just because there are exceptions. If mail isn't regularly going to a system, then folks aren't regularly traveling to them anyway.

There is either interstellar banking, or there isn't. Or it's ubiquitous, formalized, and regulated, or it's not -- and banking doesn't work well informally. Capital needs to move. Cash is terrible. Gold is terrible. They're both bulky, heavy, and unsafe. Most everything is terrible at the level of capital an interstellar needs to move routinely. Trusted information is cheap to move. Are there fringe systems barely in touch with the interstellar banking sector? Sure there are -- that's why they're fringe systems. That's why their development is stifled, since extra-stellar capital can't readily, safely, and easily move in and out. When that system wants to get on board, and engage interstellar society, they'll sign up.

And, finally, again, still, none of this is new. None of these systems are "new". They're not 1 year old, or 10 year, or even 100 year old colonies. The ones that do not have banking don't want it. Even the lowest tech level worlds can have a bank and bankers at the Starport that's interoperating with the interstellar banking system.

 

[Carlobrand]

Sharmun, "a lost colony on the a frontier section of the empire ... re-discovered by the scout service in 1076," so about 30 years before the adventure. No other information, though it looks like someone is trying to put together the various orphan worlds into something like a cohesive sector that can be linked to the rest of the Imperium.

Given the available data, there might not be much of an Imperial presence in that sector. It's a frontier region, contact re-established relatively recently. They felt the need to send a task force of 5 ships to deliver the payroll, and there was someone in that region powerful enough to take out 4 of them. Quarterly payroll, so about Cr1.67 million a month average pay. Drawing on Aramis' numbers, about 2800 men. Maybe a small base or two, a few light cruisers and supporting destroyers at the time the payroll ship went down. That would give the Imperials enough presence to intimidate any small pocket-empire in the neighborhood, but a flotilla of DEs or destroyers might still be vulnerable.

Maybe that's why they're using cash: too many places that aren't equipped to take Imperial electronic payments, whether because they're low tech or because their systems aren't set up to read Imperial paycards. That's likely to be a pretty common state of affairs outside of the Imperial borders, and there are enough places within the Imperium of low enough tech that keeping some form of currency available on a ship or at a base as an alternative would be useful.

 

[jawillroy]

These are all things the CC companies deal with today, at scale...

Good arguments, really, especially for modest sums of money. I wonder if it's that easy with the massive sums a merchant typically has to bump around with larger cargos, but still, I can buy the idea that in established worlds - especially those benefiting from A and B type ports - the banking system is going to be integrated sufficiently to make this kind of credit work. (though a character with a low SOC is going to get his credit checked hard, every time... "no way a lowlife like that is packing a legit Iridium Card.")

Do you have a grip on how the pre-electronic credit card worked across national borders?

I'm thinking in terms of a relatively small-playpen non-OTU that largely dispenses with a monolithic imperium in favor for small pocket empires, where the power of banks might extend across many but not all borders.

 

[BRJN]

IMTU (I should think about this more) ...
To better integrate the frontiers into the Imperium some day, the Imperium might decide to use a credit card currency for civilized areas, and mint precious-metal coins for use on the frontiers. Dollars / Credits, not pennies or small change; the local governments handle that. Paper money, due to the existence of Xerox machines, is valuable on the world where it is issued but takes a discount as you jump-travel away.

For the OP's purposes, paying with Cr100 iridium coins might be the best way to purchase a slave, without the records getting you into trouble with The Law when you return home.

It has been a while since I read about Andrew Jackson versus the Bank of the United States, and his "pet banks". The activities (and follies) of banks on the frontier might provide colorful material for the described adventure.

 

[whartung]

Do you have a grip on how the pre-electronic credit card worked across national borders?

I'm thinking in terms of a relatively small-playpen non-OTU that largely dispenses with a monolithic imperium in favor for small pocket empires, where the power of banks might extend across many but not all borders.

Honestly, I don't, but I think the limitation were purely regulatory rather than process or technological.

Consider that in the U.S. you could not really have a bank that spanned states. There were limitations at the federal level that prohibited it. States started to work around it by allowing their State banks to own and operate banks across state lines. Nowadays, you can find a Bank of America branch everywhere in the country. 40 years ago, they were just in California.

And that was simply regulatory limitations.

You can look at this. https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/history-of-visa-1273.php

It talks about how BofA simply licensed the brand name of BankAmericard to interstate and international banks. Arguably, the credit card was, especially at the time, simply a private venture of cooperating banks. Eventually they consolidated the system in to a larger whole than the disparate banks that they were in the beginning. I don't see why a similar model can't work across a subsector.

In the end, it's all a matter of the banks willing to absorb the risk of paying vendors before the banks themselves get paid, and reconciling the transactions on the back end.

If you want to read some fun times when it comes to banking and currency, read about the California Gold Rush and what fun times they went through.

 

[Condottiere]

Dirty money needs to be laundered.

I think it would be a given that Credite Imperiale would be block chained, and easily traceable, making it both a secure form of currency, and a way for the tax authorities to keep an eye on cash flows, and who to hit up for come April.

ShadowRun presents the most plausible solution, parallel currencies, likely accredited by local or international crime syndicates.

The other one would be barter, likely the tax authorities would make it a legal requirement to declare such transactions.

Actual physical cash likely to remain in small denominations, a deliberate policy by the United States, since you'd have to stuff quite a number of cereal boxes to pay for a shipment of drugs, if the deal is cash on delivery, or just smuggle money across borders.

I believe the most popular shop lifted item is laundry detergent; people need it, it's basically untraceable, and it's not illegal.

 

[BlackBat242]

Do you have a grip on how the pre-electronic credit card worked across national borders?

I'm thinking in terms of a relatively small-playpen non-OTU that largely dispenses with a monolithic imperium in favor for small pocket empires, where the power of banks might extend across many but not all borders.

You have to go back a bit further.

It started with written/printed cheques - once they were commonly accepted within a nation, then banks in that nation began to make agreements with banks in other nations to honor each others' cheques.

This was most often in the form of a special "traveler's cheque" that was issued specifically for transfer of funds into another nation. One purchased a set of preset denominations of TQs, then exchanged them (either separately or together) for local currency at banks or establishments in other nations that advertised as honoring that particular organization's TQs. One of the main ones in the US was American Express - I remember the television commercials from the 1970s - "The American Express Traveler's Check, don't leave home without it. Honored in more places in more countries than any other". As TQ organizations grew larger and proved their reliability, more stores etc worldwide began accepting them as direct payment, rather than requiring a bank as intermediary.


After credit cards came along, the TQ organizations began to issue credit cards that were honored in the same way by their international partners. Again, the main one in the US at the start was American Express - by the early 1980s they were selling their card as a "more secure" replacement for their easily-stolen & cashed TQs.

It wasn't long until the worldwide acceptance of the TQ carried over into the credit card business - aided by the growth in large banking institutions that began merging with banks in multiple nations.

When the bank that issued the card in the US was part of the same corporation as a major bank in France, there was no reason for a French merchant to refuse out-of-hand to accept that US-issued card.

 

[Enoki]

Some things I could see being done to keep the criminal element in check here would include:

Imperial ships, the scout service, etc., (eg., official government agencies) paying their employees in small denomination bills only. That would make large cash payments between whoever difficult to manage. If you need a pallet of 20 IC bills to pay off some criminal activity, that's far more difficult to manage than if you have 100 or 500 IC bills to do it with.

Most big transfers of money between legitimate companies, the government, and "The Rich" are likely to be done electronically in any case-- for the most part.

As for electronic funds and records being pushed between worlds-- I'd say you could game the system for a while but unless you are J4 + capable and moving outward continuously, you aren't going to outrun the system for long. The data will catch up and when it does pretty much every system that's about TL 8+ is going to have you down as a deadbeat-- or worse.

This is where if you want to play fast and loose with the rules you need to move outside the Imperium, or border jump frequently. Your other choice is to mostly stay to low tech, low pop worlds with C or worse starports.

Another way to launder money is to know of, have, or find semi-legitimate or legitimate businesses that will make what looks on the books as legitimate sales but involves changing the form of money to one that is more desirable.
A common one in the US today is changing EBT card funds for SNAP (aka Food Stamps) into cash money. The person goes to a small "store" that sells them something like a bag of potato chips for $20 and gives them $10 in cash, and the bag of chips. The store makes $10 on the transaction. Yes, that's expensive, but the person with that EBT card now has $10 hard cash to spend as they like... and some potato chips... (I know someone that installs the EBT machines. They say this is a very common thing.)

For humor you might review Rocky and Bullwinkle and box tops…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_Top_Robbery

Nothing like an alternative monetary system! :rofl:

 

[Straybow]

This would be a primary reason for filing jump plans. As long as you've filed plans, courier data will go to the destination with appropriately encrypted account information. It will probably precede you, since you'll file plans several days before you jump.


You arrive at the port and register. You enter a code that is your half of the decryption key. The bank then completes decryption and makes funds available. Any transactions are authenticated and sent back to the originating bank (it will arrive eventually).There is always a running total of transactions following you.


Now, there's always barter and cash. Certain metals retain fairly consistent value because they're plentiful enough to avoid speculative fluctuation, yet not so plentiful as to be dirt cheap. You know, like gold. Value in a post-scarcity economy (megatons available in asteroids) might stabilize in the Cr 2-5 per gram range = MCr 2-5 per ton mass. That's a respectable commodity value. Tantalum and other metals not traditionally considered precious metals would probably have similar value ranges. Almost anything with density greater than lead can't be easily counterfeited.



It would probably be in small bar, coin bullion, and mult-gram forms for handling transactions of any reasonable size. For the latter see this image. Testing the mass and density/purity is fairly easy. It is readily converted into local or interstellar currency. It could be dirty money, but it isn't the huge value as in the 20th/21st century.



Then there would be currency. Coins would be made of some alloy of precious metal, with various security features, and have a face value 4-10 times the metal value.