Use of Banks

[ExactChangeOnly]

Just an idea that I had. Is it possible to have actual use of banks. The banks can lend a certain amount of inf to characters, but at a limit. Maybe 10 to 50 million inf. That inf will need to be paid back as the character makes money. For example, when a character falls in combat, they have XP debt. Why not have INF debt to the bank. The bank automatically takes a percentage of inf from the character until their debt is fully paid.

 

Is this possible?

[megaericzero]

Some questions:

Where can that inf be used - stores, the market, traded/emailed, etc?

What happens if someone deletes a character with an outstanding debt?

[SeraphimKensai]

The bank would need interest, loan maintenance,plus a cosigner, otherwise they're not comfortable loaning you the money.

 

But seriously no. Someone like @Snarky will make 1,000 accounts and make the maximum loan per character and offload that magical money back to their main and delete the accounts/characters that are in default of the loan.

 

Sorry this is a nonstarter for the good of the game's economy.

Edited July 29 by SeraphimKensai

[Marine X]

A variation on this might be to have the Tellers capable of Storing Influence in an account for you and offering all the possible conversions of currency from one type to another. That really seems like a job a Bank could be doing anyway.

[Ghost]

Hate the idea of loaning or borrowing money - too easy to manipulate.

 

However, having a bank account where you could store unlimited amounts of influence (for a tiny monthly fee) would be awesome!

[Marine X]

6 hours ago, ExactChangeOnly said:

For example, when a character falls in combat, they have XP debt. Why not have INF debt to the bank.

The Only limit would have to be the amount of debt a character can have at any time, which would vary by level. This would determine the amount a loan could be. This would clash with the purpose of Debt as it is because you would already be at the Debt cap if you were defeated, but having 10 million plus loans would be beyond the Debt Cap limits. At lower levels where you just need a little Influence for a few Enhancements it could be worthwhile. However XP debt is repayed from experience not influence so I don't know if this is even viable.

Edited July 29 by Marine X

[MTeague]

Heroes are a bad loan risk.  Too likely to get killed before they can pay it back.  Now, maybe a Base Equity Line of Credit (BELOC), if you have a really well designed base, but if you don't make payments on time, the bank will seize your SG Base.

[Ukase]

So, as much as I'd love to have a bank, I'm looking at the troubles with the new badge tracker that seems to always run out of memory on the more populated servers. 

Can you just imagine a player depositing their funds into the bank, and then someone like Yomo deposits all of theirs, and the bank runs out of memory and nobody can get their funds back, except for a brief period after maintenance, and maybe not even then? 

Nope. Don't get me wrong, I'd love it, but because of Murphy's law, I'm not sure it's something I'd encourage. 

[srmalloy]

58 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Can you just imagine a player depositing their funds into the bank, and then someone like Yomo deposits all of theirs, and the bank runs out of memory and nobody can get their funds back, except for a brief period after maintenance, and maybe not even then? 

Having an account-wide 'bank' that is just an inf repository is a much simpler thing to implement; you have a database with one record per game account, and the database has two fields -- the game account the record belongs to, and the amount of inf in the bank. The game doesn't need to look at all the characters on the server and grovel through their badge records, then sort the data it gets back to produce an ordered list. And when you close the bank interface, the server can discard any temporary data it allocated for your transactions; there shouldn't be any way for it to run out of memory the way the badge tracker does.

[UltraAlt]

3 hours ago, srmalloy said:

Having an account-wide 'bank' that is just an inf repository is a much simpler thing to implement

 

It is already implemented.

The "account-wide bank that [can be used as] an inf repository" is in-game email.

 

 

 

 

 

[El D]

Banks already exist. You get a character to level 50, build up inf while doing so, and then dole out that inf to your alts via email. Said alts then build up more and it compounds over time. Even better, there's no interest or repayments necessary. The only requirement is 'playing the game.'

[Snarky]

9 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

The bank would need interest, loan maintenance,plus a cosigner, otherwise they're not comfortable loaning you the money.

 

But seriously no. Someone like @Snarky will make 1,000 accounts and make the maximum loan per character and offload that magical money back to their main and delete the accounts/characters that are in default of the loan.

 

Sorry this is a nonstarter for the good of the game's economy.

I disagree entirely.  I think it would be great for the Bank of Paragon to loan new Heroes 100 million each.  For spandex.  This would solve many problems.  

[Rudra]

14 hours ago, ExactChangeOnly said:

Just an idea that I had. Is it possible to have actual use of banks. The banks can lend a certain amount of inf to characters, but at a limit. Maybe 10 to 50 million inf. That inf will need to be paid back as the character makes money. For example, when a character falls in combat, they have XP debt. Why not have INF debt to the bank. The bank automatically takes a percentage of inf from the character until their debt is fully paid.

 

Is this possible?

There are players that dole out millions of inf' to other players on a whim, as a contest, or upon request. And they lack the exploit concerns that have already been brought up because there is no repayment requirement for them and they have limited wealth to spend at any given time.

[laudwic]

While I understand the idea and, in some ways, like the idea, I don't think it is worth the limited resources of the Devs time.  The post above me is right in that there are many inf billionaires who give out inf all the time, but also, frankly, inf is easy to get.  As a starting player, play a Sentinel through content.  A sentinel is probably the most forgiving at, and survivable solo for a new player.  Take that one to 50, and then you have enough inf to fund your next character.  Each character will fund the next one.   When you start doing veteran levels, you'll have more inf to fund future characters.  If your interested, learning to game the auction house for more inf.  There are directions on how to do it in the guides, it just takes a little time.

 

Honestly, I would more support the idea of inf slot machines to fill the role, but, as with anything red side, it won't get used enough even though, in some ways, it is superior.

[Ukase]

3 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

The "account-wide bank that [can be used as] an inf repository" is in-game email.

There's not enough room. That's why I had to make another account. 

[RadiantPhoenix]

On 7/29/2025 at 6:24 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

The bank would need interest, loan maintenance,plus a cosigner, otherwise they're not comfortable loaning you the money.

 

But seriously no. Someone like @Snarky will make 1,000 accounts and make the maximum loan per character and offload that magical money back to their main and delete the accounts/characters that are in default of the loan.

 

Sorry this is a nonstarter for the good of the game's economy.

The bank insists on seeing your credit report before offering a loan.

The ones that didn't went under after Dr Aeon's clones took out all of their money in "loans" and then vanished, never to be seen again.