Banks of the Wakari Coast

The Wakari Coast is a trading empire, by most definitions. Though founded by pirates, the nation found its footing in more legitimate commerce, and today its mighty economy touches every known country.
This requires an efficient banking system, and the Wakari system (centered in its capital of Ivat) is efficient enough to have been adapted and copied across its trading partners. While local creditors can be found anywhere, handling small transactions, any major city or any primary moneylender will be associated with the Wakari network of banks.
Merchants (or others, now that the system has expanded and is open to all) could deposit their gold and silver for safekeeping with a house of banking. They then received a receipt of deposit, detailing their secured funds. This receipt could be taken to another house in another city, where it is lended credibility to its bearer without the merchant needing to carry heavy and outlaw-tempting cash. These receipts quickly developed into letters of credit, permitting merchants to deposit their gold, travel to another area, and draw spending money upon arrival from another bank against their deposit at home.
Cheques were another convenience which arose from this system, a document directing a bank to pay the bearer a specific amount from the author's account. This (with the accompanying receipts of deposit which validated the cheque's worth) greatly simplified large transactions.
Clearly all this requires an enormous amound of recordkeeping and communication among bankhouses, and clerks are in high demand. Daily updates are dispatched between cities, and within a large city, banks may exchanged updated accounts as often as four times a day. These sophisticated and protected networks of both gold and information transport make bankhouses among the best informed, rivaling or even exceeding royal messaging.

Type

Corporation, Financial

Capital

Ivat