Author: Centaura
Translator: marcelbuter
The credit crunch still doesn’t seem to be over. Even though trade is flourishing this trade period, banks still have financial troubles and are trying everything to get new customers so they can invest further. At least, I hope that is their motivation, because some of the bankers don’t seem competent enough to keep their banks upright.
The bank crisis started when Car-Dealertje started a third bank in Kronenburg. Since there were already two banks in Cyberia, in Eurodam and Zwollar, he didn’t get many customers and decided to raise the deposit interest to 5%. This way he thought he would get a lot of money in his safe. His plan succeeded, within hours valuable I-Shells flowed into his vault. Unfortunately though for Car-Dealertje the interest was a few thousand too much. It only took a day before his bank was deemed bankrupt. Due to the invested money the bankrupt banker had no money left as reserve and Car-Dealertje himself also went bankrupt. Rumors say that our sympathetic but bankrupt banker received a few shots to the chest which resulted in him being flown to The Netherlands for medical care.
Car-Dealertje however wasn’t the only person who put the interest rate that high. Centaura, also an amateur when it comes to banks, was tricked by a fellow trader and lost 2000 I-Shells on interest rates on deposits. Luckily for him he had enough reserves that his bank was not at risk, unlike the aforementioned banker.
The story doesn’t end there though. Even though Car-Dealertje had already proved that the strategy of high interest deposits was not a viable one, supercop found it necessary to try it again. After the fall of Car-Dealertje’s bank he started his own bank in Eurodam to fight the competition, the mega handelaar, head on. His strategy? Interest rates up to 11%!. Up til now around 50,000 I-Shell has been deposited into his bank vault for this interest rate, raising the question whether he can pay it all back or not. At the time of writing our super cop was bankrupt due to the constant nagging of creditors and bailiffs.
This proves once more that even though the economy is getting healthier, that banks are not always safe. Let’s hope that future bankers will learn from mistakes made in this trading period!