I'm a little leery of Letters of Credit. I can see how it would be easy to use but it would still take time to verify that the person with the letter of credit is the person to whom it belongs to, the lag time to confirm the letter will still take weeks. Say you have a letter of credit drawn n the bank of Regina and you want to cash it in on Aramis, but as an independent free trader you have to follow the cargos and they take you to Aramanx instead. So even if you have the bank of Regina send confirmation ahead of you the bank on Aramanx it will take at least four weeks for the confirmation to be forwarded.
Independent free traders who go from world to world and never look back most likely have to take their financial records with them. Here the bank reader cards that carry all the records would work best. He could access all his record at any time using his back reader or maybe a hand computer. He would know exactly how much money he has to spend and would be able to make transactions on the spot with no lag time waiting for confirmation. When he go to a bank he could have his records updated and sent to his home bank of if he has no home bank a local bank could update his records. I picture this working like a debit card does today except the card having all the information on it means you don't have to wait for the bank the debit card belongs to to confirm the amount is available as the card will do it automatically.
Free traders with regular routes will tend to stick to these routes so will become well known to the banks on the worlds they regularly visit making it much easier to draw a line of credit on a local bank and confirmation is quicker due to shorter distances.
For merchants that work for bigger corporations even small sub-sector wide ones can call on a local factor that works for the corporation to handle the money. As for personal use money like salary's the bank reader card works for me for personal purchases.
You could go with paper money and hard coins instead of or in addition to the bank reader card. this cash would be printed at the sub-sector capital and shipped out to banks in the sub-sector who would then issue it much like is done today. During the rebellion each side would make up their own paper money so if you did cross boarder trade you would have to be very careful as handing over a Lucan Credit to Dulinor could get you shot.
During the collapse a merchant would have to have currency that all would recognize and except. Here the only thing I can see people excepting is specie currency. No one would care who's face was on the coin (the local warlord or John Doe from ten worlds over) just that a gold coin was a gold coin.
In the Coalition we use the paper money route as people would still be leery of spreading virus by using the bank reader cards. Banks in the Coalition would have a ready supply of specie currency for free traders and lancers who were going out into the wilds where most people have only heard about the Coalition "Vikings" and would probably run away if someone flashed Coalition money around. Not to mention the TEDs, Guild and Solee who would be much interested not in the money but in the person who was flashing the money around.
Personally I like the idea of the bank reader card as all the information is at hand and there is no lag time, it makes things easier, but we still use both Imperial or Coalition paper/coin money and specie currency as well. There's nothing better to get some one's attention than to walk in and toss a gold coin on the table.
Roger
Independent free traders who go from world to world and never look back most likely have to take their financial records with them. Here the bank reader cards that carry all the records would work best. He could access all his record at any time using his back reader or maybe a hand computer. He would know exactly how much money he has to spend and would be able to make transactions on the spot with no lag time waiting for confirmation. When he go to a bank he could have his records updated and sent to his home bank of if he has no home bank a local bank could update his records. I picture this working like a debit card does today except the card having all the information on it means you don't have to wait for the bank the debit card belongs to to confirm the amount is available as the card will do it automatically.
Free traders with regular routes will tend to stick to these routes so will become well known to the banks on the worlds they regularly visit making it much easier to draw a line of credit on a local bank and confirmation is quicker due to shorter distances.
For merchants that work for bigger corporations even small sub-sector wide ones can call on a local factor that works for the corporation to handle the money. As for personal use money like salary's the bank reader card works for me for personal purchases.
You could go with paper money and hard coins instead of or in addition to the bank reader card. this cash would be printed at the sub-sector capital and shipped out to banks in the sub-sector who would then issue it much like is done today. During the rebellion each side would make up their own paper money so if you did cross boarder trade you would have to be very careful as handing over a Lucan Credit to Dulinor could get you shot.
During the collapse a merchant would have to have currency that all would recognize and except. Here the only thing I can see people excepting is specie currency. No one would care who's face was on the coin (the local warlord or John Doe from ten worlds over) just that a gold coin was a gold coin.
In the Coalition we use the paper money route as people would still be leery of spreading virus by using the bank reader cards. Banks in the Coalition would have a ready supply of specie currency for free traders and lancers who were going out into the wilds where most people have only heard about the Coalition "Vikings" and would probably run away if someone flashed Coalition money around. Not to mention the TEDs, Guild and Solee who would be much interested not in the money but in the person who was flashing the money around.
Personally I like the idea of the bank reader card as all the information is at hand and there is no lag time, it makes things easier, but we still use both Imperial or Coalition paper/coin money and specie currency as well. There's nothing better to get some one's attention than to walk in and toss a gold coin on the table.
Roger