General Does there need to be a deep, dark reason not to steal in the Imperium...

[Enoki]

What I see is things likely work something like this:

You can't buy a ship on a straight-out loan. You have to make a down payment. This goes for any larger price tag item you buy. The down payment is then used by the lender to take out insurance against you skipping out on the loan. Your loan payments include a cost per month to cover that insurance payment. For smaller stuff, there's 'lay away.'

You skip and the lender gets the loan paid off in part or full by the insurer. Your ability to get another loan plummets and that spreads at the speed of the X-boat service across the Imperium. That means you find your J2 ship is arriving at ports where they already know you skipped on the loan, and then bad things happen... To you!

At the same time, the lender then sells off the bad loan to collection agencies who specialize in getting their 'pound of flesh' they've purchased out of you quite literally. That is, they hunt you down and do very mean things to you until you pay up.

Since they technically can collect your ship as payment for the amount they bought, they get quite the deal, and you get a cheap coffin. So, what you have are companies that are bad debt collectors buying up the rights to your defaulted loan and the property attached to it. They work barely within the law in terms of how they go about collecting.

One method is you and your ship / property are put on a hot sheet between these sorts of 'black' companies and that spreads far and wide at the rate of movement of the X-boat service. So, some local bounty hunter sees your wanted poster, sees you, and things get dicey PDQ for you.

Your best bet if you plan on skipping out on the loan is to get the hell of the Imperium ASAP. No X-boat service per se, and who knows, if you pick the right small polity or system, they might actually be friendly to you showing up with a running (pun intended) ship.

Same thing with the library example. You have to pay a membership fee to use it. The fee is sufficient that if you don't return lent materials, you get put on the naughty list and the library uses some of that membership fee to cover the loss via insurance.

Now, given that insurance is in play here, the thing to do is not skip out on the loan per se but rather set things up where you ship gets "pirated" or "destroyed" or the like and those who pirated or destroyed it actually paid you a pretty good chunk of change for it. You then turn around and get the insurance to pay off making sure it covers the whole cost of the ship plus a little extra for your troubles. You make out quite well, the lender is satisfied, and only the insurance company gets screwed, but they really don't care because they're set up to make a profit even if some of their policies go this route. Of course, you might end up getting a serious mind probing by the insurer's psionics division personnel who might--will regardless of the truth--say you're lying and pulling an insurance scam. Now you're back to dealing with their division of leg breakers and knee cappers.

You know, this is the guy you get reviewing your insurance claim...

 

[coliver988]

Eonoki: Since they technically can collect your ship as payment for the amount they bought, they get quite the deal, and you get a cheap coffin. So, what you have are companies that are bad debt collectors buying up the rights to your defaulted loan and the property attached to it. They work barely within the law in terms of how they go about collecting.

which brings up the point of this thread in a way: as I understand it the Imperium really rules via trade: planets have their own laws and rules which do not go beyond that system. There are a few ways to get the loan:
- self-finance. Though if you have that sort of money guess you must be the adventuring type
- Imperial-wide bank. A bank such as Hortalez et Cie, Ling-Standard, Zirunkariish or a smaller one
- smaller, non-Imperial-wide bank
- and a few other ways, not always legal (piracy, salvage, etc)

those Imperial-wide banks I presume have locations on major worlds. But as each world may have its own laws, the "barely within the law" seems a lot more flexible. Shoot first and presume guilty may be entirely legal and supported, versus "fill out these 34 forms to get a warrant to get inside the ship".

I do agree that skipping and staying inside the Imperium will eventually catch up with you and Bad Things Will Happen To You© Just how bad will be determined on who and where the catch up happens.

I did run a game of Traveller for bounty hunters. Sadly it did not last long as the players for some reason felt really constrained by the Imperial law despite there not actually being any such Imperial laws. It was a failing on my part to explain that each world in the Imperium rules itself and the Imperium only worries about trade.

 

[Commander Truestar]

First, I agree 100% with what @Enoki said above!!!
To answer an earlier question about Banks having branches in every po-dunk system - Nope!
In the real world, the issue depends on "Correspondent Banks"
Example: John buys something on the web from GoneShiFaroff, China and bills his local bank account.
---- Since his bank does not have any relationship with the GoneShiFaroff Bank, they have an account with a major international bank.
---- Let's say that is "PayeverywhereUS Bank" They have branches all over the US.
---- They are also large enough they have an account with "BankOfChina", and BankOfChina
---- They an account with "either" the Province of China "Or" GoneShiFaroff Bank themselves.
---- If they only have a branch in the Provence, they connect to another "middleman" bank to connect to GoneShiFaroff Bank

Each one of these is called a "Correspondent Bank" and each charges a fee to their clients to handle such fund transfers

It should also be noted that every time a transaction is accepted "from a payer" and "to a payee", it is tested against sanctioned entities lists.
So, if you fled without paying your mortgage, they can add you to "their list" and encourage their clients and other partners to add you to those other lists. So, to add to what @Enoki said above, you may suddenly find yourself cut off and your electronic assets frozen until you resolve the problem.

This "is" in fact how the modern global credit and payment system works.

 

[Enoki]

Eonoki: Since they technically can collect your ship as payment for the amount they bought, they get quite the deal, and you get a cheap coffin. So, what you have are companies that are bad debt collectors buying up the rights to your defaulted loan and the property attached to it. They work barely within the law in terms of how they go about collecting.

which brings up the point of this thread in a way: as I understand it the Imperium really rules via trade: planets have their own laws and rules which do not go beyond that system. There are a few ways to get the loan:
- self-finance. Though if you have that sort of money guess you must be the adventuring type
- Imperial-wide bank. A bank such as Hortalez et Cie, Ling-Standard, Zirunkariish or a smaller one
- smaller, non-Imperial-wide bank
- and a few other ways, not always legal (piracy, salvage, etc)

those Imperial-wide banks I presume have locations on major worlds. But as each world may have its own laws, the "barely within the law" seems a lot more flexible. Shoot first and presume guilty may be entirely legal and supported, versus "fill out these 34 forms to get a warrant to get inside the ship".

I do agree that skipping and staying inside the Imperium will eventually catch up with you and Bad Things Will Happen To You© Just how bad will be determined on who and where the catch up happens.

I did run a game of Traveller for bounty hunters. Sadly it did not last long as the players for some reason felt really constrained by the Imperial law despite there not actually being any such Imperial laws. It was a failing on my part to explain that each world in the Imperium rules itself and the Imperium only worries about trade.

Whereas I think there is Imperial law about interstellar and intersystem commerce and such. How strictly these are enforced depends on the local government and particularly how the nobility feels about enforcing them. For any A and most B starport systems, they are enforced to ENFORCED. Those systems might turn a blind eye to particular Imperial laws, but on the whole, they enforce them because they don't want higher nobility or the emperor noticing their shenanigans. Nobody particularly cares what the C and lower starport systems do because, for the most part, they're economic basket cases of no importance.

Of course, the local nobility on some backwater nothing of a system might have a vested interest in turning you in to score brownie points with the subsector duke or viscount... So, be careful because this junior noble might just toss you out a tower window for fun and to see how high you bounce while taking all your stuff and declaring it "stolen property" that is now the state's (eg., his).

It isn't just the banks here either. The real power in coming after your absconded ship are the insurers. This was as true on Earth in the age of sail as it is today.

The insurer has to eat the bad debt and pay off the bank for their loss. In turn, the insurance company turns over their loss to either an internal loss control division--said psionics + leg breakers--or sells it to bad debt collectors who specialize in hunting you down, likely killing you, and taking all your $4!+ no questions asked. Both groups have an information network that spans parsecs, if not the known galaxy. They live to find you and make you pay while simultaneously making you hurt real bad. Once you have a bounty placed on you, it doesn't go away until you are dead or you pay up.

Just think... Some mega-corps insurance company, say Lloyd's of the Imperium, underwrote the loan. Among their assets are several incredibly powerful clairvoyants how are very, very, good at determining where you are more or less--say down to the subsector or maybe even the system depending on distance. The insurance company will come for you, or their subcontracted agents will...

Worse for you, even if you pay up, it'll take time--like the rest of your life if you're lucky--for this little 'misunderstanding' to be cleared up everywhere you might go.

As the starport authority is slapping the cuffs on you...

"Wait! I paid that debt off!"
"Not according to the paperwork we have. You can clear it up with the judge from debtor's prison..."

One missed payment can last a lifetime. So, don't miss those payments!

 

[Condottiere]

or,

 

[kilemall]

I have it a bit differently re insurance but thats in the details. Just makes sense that the bank isn’t going to risk it’s capital on operators paying insurance voluntarily.

 

[whulorigan]

We know a transponder is required, period. (Mentions in MT, TNE.)
We know loans and repos are common (CT JTAS, all core rules)
We know that you can pay at any starport C or better bank... so there's a bank at all C, B, and A ports...

It's safe to assume that your issuing bank sends a notice to everywhere within two jumps of your agreed route a notice to check. And they will, if you are seen off route, expand the message 2 jumps from there AND notify the bank.

And since we know from the old CT-JTAS #24 article that:

There is an Imperial Standard Credit Card (ISCC) that is " . . . a credit-card sized portable bank teller with a micro-processor unit which keeps track of its associated account. The card also contains biometric data of the owner of the account in order to ensure the identity of the one using the card for financial transactions . . . It is nearly tamper-proof, in that most attempts to tamper with it merely result in blanking the card . . . ", with an associated Iridium Edition: " . . . There is also an Iridium Edition of the ISCC available to the ultra-wealthy containing the complete sequence of the owner's DNA Code in addition to the fingerprint, retina, and other biometric data for positive proof identification and practically unlimited reliability of credit, to the point where it is even possible for the possessors of such a card to purchase a starship with its confirmation of identity and positive credit. Only the very wealthy may obtain the Iridium Edition of the card. It contains the owner's DNA code, allowing for positive identification and unlimited reliability. Starships have been purchased on these cards . . . " -​

It is not a stretch to suggest that some analogous version of this type of technology that interfaces with a Starport counterpart and its X-Boat financial-data dump records is also a routine component of the Starship transponder system, given the nature of communication in Charted Space.

 

[whartung]

I recently learned about Hawala, an old, informal Islamic banking system.

It's conceptually simple. To transfer money, you go to a hawalan broker, and say "I want to give 1000Cr to Frank on Regina". The broker take the 1000Cr, writes out a receipt, and you leave with that. The next trick is getting the receipt to Frank. With that receipt, he goes to a local broker and redeems it for the 1000Cr.

The fundamental premise behind this is that money does not physically move, balances do. The first broker puts the 1000Cr into their local reserves, and the Regina broker takes it out of their reserves to give to Frank.

Then, on a regular basis (say, annually), the two brokers reconcile and then move actual currency to balance the accounts.

It's important when moving physical money (cash, gold, gems) is difficult. In reduces both the volume and frequency of currency motion. (So, you can load up the gold into a guarded caravan, or whatever.)

It's informal and heavily based on trust. Obviously it also needs large reserves.

But, fundamentally, it's not much different from any other banking system. Back in the day, if you wanted to cash an out of state check, some places would flat out not take it, others would give you a portion of the funds until the check cleared, etc. Banks were moving bank drafts around when the horse and buggy were the Fast WiFi of the day. And ne'erdowells would abuse the "float" of the check between when it was cashed, and actually reconciled by the particpating banks.

What's interesting, for a Traveller PoV, is that you could consider something like a starship payment.

"Just walk into a teller and plop down a few MCr."

But, what you're really doing is not give them MCr to hold and move to the bank, rather, you're giving the the INSTRUCTIONS to move the money. The money moves (eventually) from the Captains Bank account to the Lien Holder bank account directly. It's not sacks of cash being shoved on freighters to move from system to system. What you're giving the teller is the "signed" document to authorize the transaction, not the money itself. When the transaction reaches the Lien Hodler, they execute it to facilitate the actual money transfer.

 

[Badenov]

I recently learned about Hawala, an old, informal Islamic banking system.

*snip*

But, what you're really doing is not give them MCr to hold and move to the bank, rather, you're giving the the INSTRUCTIONS to move the money. The money moves (eventually) from the Captains Bank account to the Lien Holder bank account directly. It's not sacks of cash being shoved on freighters to move from system to system. What you're giving the teller is the "signed" document to authorize the transaction, not the money itself. When the transaction reaches the Lien Hodler, they execute it to facilitate the actual money transfer.

The other advantage of only balancing payments by shipping cash once a year is that if someone's sent 1000Cr from Capital to Regina and someone else 6 months later sends 1000Cr from Regina to Capital, then there's no cash cargo shipment needed. Of course it's never going to work out that neatly, but I'm sure that to some extent payments in one direction will be offset by payments in the other direction.

 

[Commander Truestar]

I recently learned about Hawala, an old, informal Islamic banking system.

It's conceptually simple. To transfer money, you go to a hawalan broker, and say "I want to give 1000Cr to Frank on Regina". The broker take the 1000Cr, writes out a receipt, and you leave with that. The next trick is getting the receipt to Frank. With that receipt, he goes to a local broker and redeems it for the 1000Cr.

The fundamental premise behind this is that money does not physically move, balances do. The first broker puts the 1000Cr into their local reserves, and the Regina broker takes it out of their reserves to give to Frank.

Then, on a regular basis (say, annually), the two brokers reconcile and then move actual currency to balance the accounts.

It's important when moving physical money (cash, gold, gems) is difficult. In reduces both the volume and frequency of currency motion. (So, you can load up the gold into a guarded caravan, or whatever.)

It's informal and heavily based on trust. Obviously it also needs large reserves.

But, fundamentally, it's not much different from any other banking system. Back in the day, if you wanted to cash an out of state check, some places would flat out not take it, others would give you a portion of the funds until the check cleared, etc. Banks were moving bank drafts around when the horse and buggy were the Fast WiFi of the day. And ne'erdowells would abuse the "float" of the check between when it was cashed, and actually reconciled by the particpating banks.

What's interesting, for a Traveller PoV, is that you could consider something like a starship payment.

"Just walk into a teller and plop down a few MCr."

But, what you're really doing is not give them MCr to hold and move to the bank, rather, you're giving the the INSTRUCTIONS to move the money. The money moves (eventually) from the Captains Bank account to the Lien Holder bank account directly. It's not sacks of cash being shoved on freighters to move from system to system. What you're giving the teller is the "signed" document to authorize the transaction, not the money itself. When the transaction reaches the Lien Hodler, they execute it to facilitate the actual money transfer.

This is similar to the system first used by members of cultural groups in the middle ages.
Most famously, certain Orders of Chivalry and/or Religious authorities - as established figures of trust - would provide those moving from Europe to the Holy Lands with letters vouching for monies paid in Europe.
Those traveling would then meet with named persons or groups in the Holy Land to claim their money in the region.

This essentially founded the banks of Europe.
(Of course, they became lenders, which led to that famous Friday the 13th when the King of France decided to erase his massive debts by taking down the Order of the Knights Templar...)

 

[mike wightman]

A promissory note is how paper currency came to be a thing.

The paper is almost worthless, what it represents has value, providing it is honoured (try spending a Scottish £20 note in England...)

 

[whulorigan]

A promissory note is how paper currency came to be a thing.

The paper is almost worthless, what it represents has value, providing it is honoured (try spending a Scottish £20 note in England...)

Isn't that 20s?

 

[Condottiere]

If you think about it, religious institutions tend to become money collection centres.

The Vikings came to the same conclusion.

It's why sacking temples tends to have priority.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Imperium Express Card
Don't leave known space without it.

 

[Commander Truestar]

Imperium Express Card
Don't leave known space without it.

This message brought to you by Carl Maulden's nose!

 

[Vargr Breath]

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