Master Banks and Franchise Counters
an owners guide I am often asked how franchises work, because the helpfile is somewhat confusing and the exact management of the counters, while extremely simple once mastered, is very confusing to the newcomer.
On this page I will attempt to explain the basics in a way that is easy to understand. Touch wood. You can only have one bank counter per shop unless you want to seriously mess up syntax. Purchasing the counter
When standing in the shop, type purchase stuff to summon a spulluf. list on spulluf to view the list of shop items for sale. For most items you just buy <letter> from spuluff, but for bank counters it is more difficult. You will need to specify the name of the banking enterprise you wish to be associated with using the buy with options syntax. This syntax is particularly difficult to figure out. I "think" it is buy <letter> with branch=<branch name> from spulluf. Browsing the item will give its description and capacity, a list of the Master banks and their current opening and rental costs. browse <letter> on spulluf When finished you can dismiss spulluf Once you have purchased the counter you can place it using standard playerhouse placement options. See syntax place.
Note that the shops size (square yards) and the wall space is unrelated. You can take up all available floor space and still leave plenty of room for furnishings and decorations. The shop items will take up some of the wall space though, so take this into account. The Master Bank Counter
The creation of a master bank counter causes the shop in which it is purchased to become the home office of a new banking enterprise. You chose the name of the enterprise on purchase and that name will always be the base name of the bank. You can change the shops name, but the banks name is permanent. This is why playerhouse rents for BOP are listed under Fluffy Rabbits. The Master bank counter has an infinite vault, so it is never to full for deposits.
By setting your percentage cut you determine how much profit will be made on each transaction. There is a government tax of 1% on all player bank deposits, regardless of whether it is a master counter or a franchise. So you must take this into account when setting your percentage.
While it is possible to set the cost of deposits to 0%, you will be losing money.
When people deposit money the percentage charged, minus the tax, is added to the shop float, the remainder of the amount goes into their private account, which you have no access to or control over. While you can blacklist the person from the shop, preventing them access to their funds and denying further deposits, their actual account remains inviolate. If the master bank counter is trashed, all accounts held by that bank will remain intact. They will not be accessible though, except through franchise counters, until a new master counter is purchased in the same store as the original.
It will also not be possible for the franchise owners to empty or fill their counters from the home office if the master counter is not available. Playerhouse rents will continue to be deducted as normal from accounts held in a counterless bank, so players will not lose their properties as a result of a trashed counter.
As far as I know, it is impossible to establish a new master bank coorporation from a shop which has previously held a master counter. You can buy a new master counter to make the old bank usable again, but the official name of the bank will be the same as before. The exception may be if there are no accounts left in the old bank. I do not know.
Master counter control over franchises
You have no control over the operations of the franchises, unless the respective owners allow you. You are not able to empty or fill the franchise counters, nor affect their percentage costs directly. You can't trash the counters or replace them. What you can do is: set a base cost for the purchase of a new franchise counter (on top of the default charge). This extra money will be transferred directly to your shop float. set buy franchise cost <cost> on <object> There is a monthly (disc time) rental fee for owning a franchise counter, you can set this fee. You can set the default monthly rental with set franchise monthly cost <cost> on <object>. To change the rent of a specific property use set franchise monthly cost <cost> for <franchise id> on <object> This will take them off the default system. While it is possible to set a monthly fee of several thousand dollars, it would be most unproductive to do so because no one would set up franchises of your bank in such a circumstance.
There is a list syntax which will allow you to list all franchises of the master counter. list franchises on <counter> This list gives the current trading name of the property, its current balance (possibly shop float?) and its address. eg. A Fifteen on 18, Lover's Lane ; balance A$9260.03 (cost per month A$5)
B Chaser's Market on 2a, Market Street; balance A$926.85 (cost per month A$5) Franchise Operations
You define which Banking Corporation you are a subset of at the time of counter purchase, once established you can not change it, except by trashing the counter and buying a new one. A symbol on the counter will identify its parent bank, just look at it.
'A franchise is connected up to a main bank. You will pay a monthly fee to the main bank that is settable by the owner of the main bank.
The maximum balance of the bank counter is variable, but it is controlled at purchase time.
The bank balance and the float of the shop are tied together.'
Well that is the basic information the spulluf will give out, now lets expand on that a little.
The franchise is connected to the main bank. When a deposit or withdrawal is made at a franchise branch, the home office adjusts the account at all branches.
So 1000 rhinu deposited in BP is instantly available in AM.
Bank capacity is essentially how much credit the master counter is willing to extend to you, or owe you. The capacity of your bank counter is tied to the size of the counter. Small: $500, standard: $1 000, large: $2 000, huge: $10 000.
The base amount is the same regardless of location, but the bank will only process the local currency. There is a monthly fee charged by the home office in exchange for the priviledge of running a franchise of their corporation. This fee can be changed at the discretion of the owner of the master counter and will be taken from your float automatically, once every ten real days. Apart from Bing's, most CEO's only charge a few dollars. The bank balance and the shop float are tied together. Now we enter into the fun part of running a bank, where things get a little complicated. When a deposit is made into a franchise counter, the entire amount of that deposit is added to the shop float. When a withdrawal is made, it is taken from the shop float. With me so far? Good, now lets go into detail. Your percentage cut is how much of the amount deposited is actually yours. Except that there is a 1% tax on all deposits, so you don't get that.
If you set it to 0% you will lose money; if you set it at 1% you make no money; and if you set it to 20% you will get 20p out of every dollar deposited. So at a 10% percentage cut. If a player makes a deposit of $100.
$99 is added to shop float, out of which $9 is your money, and the remaining $90 is owed the master bank.
Which has already credited the depositors account for $90.
It is time for some visual examples
I will include explanations in red text.
Type status room
You will see something like this: The owner of the property is elanor. The owner of the shop, most likely you.
The name of the property is The Enchanters Retreat The name of the property. The lease of the property ends on Fri Jan 26 22:09:42 2007. When the lease expires (real time). The black list is empty. Players you have banned from using anything in the shop. The property currently has a sign set. Any non-living object (except coins) you can carry may be set as an outside sign. Current float is 15019Rh 101s. The current shop float (petty cash). Use use condition: true. Use blackjack condition: true. Use pickler condition: true. The condition thing is I believe used to ban people from using Use postal condition: true. certain shop devices without total blacklisting. Use buy condition: true. I don't know how it works, but trashed items still show up. the huge bank counter: Bank Branch : Fluffy Rabbits The Master Bank Corporation to which you are franchised. Revenue : 320806Rh 14s The total amount of money this counter has earned in its liftetime. Master Address : 4 Attic Bee Street, Ankh-Morpork Where to find the master counter. Maximum allowed bank balance : 8333Rh 40s (fixed) The maximum capacity of your counter. Bank Balance : 1144Rh 24s The current amount of money in the counter. Credit Notes Outstanding : 0s Credit Notes are used to transfer money from franchise to master Monthly Fee : 5Rh (set by bank owner) How much the master owner charges you monthly (disc time). Next Pay Day : 6:09pm, Octeday 4th Grune Prime, UC 2022 (Thu Dec 14 07:50:45 2006) Time of next fee. Percentage : 17% Current percentage cut. Open account cost : 1Rh How much you charge people to open an account. While the actual funds are stored in the shop float, the master counter will only extend a fixed ammount of debit or credit. This is your maximum allowed bank balance. It extends into negative figures to the same ammount as in positive to allow a full deposit/withdrawal range of twice the capacity. If the Balance is in negative figures the master counter owes you money, if its positive you are in debt. While shop float is infinite, deposits/withdrawals can not be made beyond the counter capacity because the master counter will not cover excess amounts. When a deposit is made the total amount minus your percentage cut is added to the balance. In addition, it is not possible to withdraw funds unless there is enough money in the float to cover the transaction.
If the counter is empty: create credit note and take it to the master counter, then process note and you will be paid the amount owing. You will lose money on the exchange unless the master bank utilises the same currency because of the changer costs. If the counter is full: create credit note and collect royalties of <xxxxx> You will need to collect not only the amount of the credit note (bank balance), but also enough money to cover the cost of currency exchange, unless the master counter uses the same currency as you. Exchange the money and take both the cash and the credit note to the master counter. Then process note. The Bank Balance is now 0 with no Credit Notes outstanding. The cost of money changers is the reason that percentage costs must be set high in order to make a profit. Coupled with the fact that with excess withdrawels you make no money at all. Ideally you want withdrawals and deposits to be equal, which would mean you never have to empty the vault and can just sit back and let the money roll in. A nice dream, but not functional. Still every withdrawal leaves space for more deposits. Normally deposits will exceed withdrawals and so you will be able to make a profit as long as you set the percentage cost higher than the changers cost. Some folk might complain, but if your reasonable they will still be saving money on the exchange. Let's look at an example now. Assume percentage cut of 17%. Bank Balance 0. Money Changer cost 15% Tax of 1% Player Fluff deposits 100 Rhinu 99Rh is added to shop float, 83Rh ($99.60) is credited to Fluff's account and Bank Balance moves to 83Rh create credit note Bank Balance 83Rh, Credit notes outstanding 83Rh. collect royalties of 100 rhinu and head to money changer After expenses you are left with $102 (85Rh). Go to the master counter and process note. You are left holding $2.40, this is your profit. With larger amounts you might feel safe in your math and only collect enough royalties to cover the changer costs, give or take a dollar or two, leaving the profit in the float for later. If James withdraws 100Rh and Sammy deposits 200, you are left with 18% profit rather than 1%. But if Dave withdraws 100Rh and and Joan only deposits 50Rh you are looking at a loss. Shrug. It should be possible to reissue a credit note if you lose one. syntax replace or something. If not, you will need to ask a liaison or other creator for assistance. Remember the important commands. syntax set, syntax blacklist, syntax status, syntax collect, name property <name>, remove sign. I hope this extremely lengthy page has answered all your questions about how banks work. If you have any other questions, send me a mudmail or tell. Elanor the Wise |