- Location
- England
Money: What is it good for?
Thank you for coming in today. I am the manager for 5th Elemental Bank-remember our motto, the 5th element is prosperity! Ha ha, we like to have fun here. Now I understand you have concerns about the safety of your money if you start an account with us, and I am here to assuage those concerns.
Now I imagine the first concern you may have is that supervillains and their ilk are going to come rob the bank, as you may have seen in the news. Well, if I may share some history, as recently as the 2000s, banks such as ours had started transferring their wealth online so that banks themselves do not have a great deal of liquid currency in them to steal. However this proved to be a problem with the rise of cyber criminals and AI, who proved adept at breaking through online security and accessing our funds. We all remember the 'Turbulence' incident in 2010 where millions of dollars of online funds were suddenly redistributed to different charities overnight. Yes I understand that many of those that lost funds were third world dictators and the like-no none of them were our clients I assure you. Regardless, it caused massive disruption.
There have been some success in countering this with block chain technology, for example Latveria has very successful blockchain technology that appears to have stumped AI called D.O.O.M-Chain. However, for most part this has resulted in banks keeping more liquid wealth than expected in our vaults for security purposes. We've countered that to some degree by ensuring our bank branches are in areas with high superhero traffic, such as Metropolis and Stern Bild City, so very often criminals either avoid robbing our banks or are apprehended quickly. In addition we have hired on private security firms* such as Blackhawk Squad Protection Group as well as utilise mechanised Guardians from Namba Heavy Industries. Our few extraterestrial branches are supported by the security firm Thugs 4 Less-I assure you they are far more competent than their name implies.
However, you may be wondering how we deal with the fact that there exist Quirks that make it possible to imitate others, or perhaps replicate money? Well this was a problem until the discovery ofGringotts Wizarding Bank and the goblins who work there. 12 years ago Gringotts bank was discovered by the public at large, and the employees there have over 5 centuries of experience dealing with supernatural attempts to forge money or infiltrate their security. During that time they have only ever had 2 break ins, and they have learnt from each time. Every bank worth their salt hires a Gringotts goblin as a consultant to make sure our security is up to snuff. For example our security are equipped with Probity Probes to detect concealment spells or hidden magic items, and we've found it works well on most disguise quirks as well, in addition to state of the art modern security. Additionally, our ties with Gringotts means we usually exchange our currency for Galleons when stored, as supernatural duplication of that currency do not last for very long, and can be detected by Goblins. This has proven somewhat helpful in identifying sudden inflation caused by duplicated money, which has helped prevent a fair few recessions that would have made the Great Depression seem like short change.
*OOC Does anyone know any private security firms in fiction that aren't evil? These are literally the only two I could find, not including Omni Consumer Products from Robo Cop, and they are super evil. Namble doesn't even really do private security, that was a stretch even for me.
Is there anything else about finance you want me to address? Let me know and I will add it to this post to make it easier for threadmarking.
Thank you for coming in today. I am the manager for 5th Elemental Bank-remember our motto, the 5th element is prosperity! Ha ha, we like to have fun here. Now I understand you have concerns about the safety of your money if you start an account with us, and I am here to assuage those concerns.
Now I imagine the first concern you may have is that supervillains and their ilk are going to come rob the bank, as you may have seen in the news. Well, if I may share some history, as recently as the 2000s, banks such as ours had started transferring their wealth online so that banks themselves do not have a great deal of liquid currency in them to steal. However this proved to be a problem with the rise of cyber criminals and AI, who proved adept at breaking through online security and accessing our funds. We all remember the 'Turbulence' incident in 2010 where millions of dollars of online funds were suddenly redistributed to different charities overnight. Yes I understand that many of those that lost funds were third world dictators and the like-no none of them were our clients I assure you. Regardless, it caused massive disruption.
There have been some success in countering this with block chain technology, for example Latveria has very successful blockchain technology that appears to have stumped AI called D.O.O.M-Chain. However, for most part this has resulted in banks keeping more liquid wealth than expected in our vaults for security purposes. We've countered that to some degree by ensuring our bank branches are in areas with high superhero traffic, such as Metropolis and Stern Bild City, so very often criminals either avoid robbing our banks or are apprehended quickly. In addition we have hired on private security firms* such as Blackhawk Squad Protection Group as well as utilise mechanised Guardians from Namba Heavy Industries. Our few extraterestrial branches are supported by the security firm Thugs 4 Less-I assure you they are far more competent than their name implies.
However, you may be wondering how we deal with the fact that there exist Quirks that make it possible to imitate others, or perhaps replicate money? Well this was a problem until the discovery ofGringotts Wizarding Bank and the goblins who work there. 12 years ago Gringotts bank was discovered by the public at large, and the employees there have over 5 centuries of experience dealing with supernatural attempts to forge money or infiltrate their security. During that time they have only ever had 2 break ins, and they have learnt from each time. Every bank worth their salt hires a Gringotts goblin as a consultant to make sure our security is up to snuff. For example our security are equipped with Probity Probes to detect concealment spells or hidden magic items, and we've found it works well on most disguise quirks as well, in addition to state of the art modern security. Additionally, our ties with Gringotts means we usually exchange our currency for Galleons when stored, as supernatural duplication of that currency do not last for very long, and can be detected by Goblins. This has proven somewhat helpful in identifying sudden inflation caused by duplicated money, which has helped prevent a fair few recessions that would have made the Great Depression seem like short change.
*OOC Does anyone know any private security firms in fiction that aren't evil? These are literally the only two I could find, not including Omni Consumer Products from Robo Cop, and they are super evil. Namble doesn't even really do private security, that was a stretch even for me.
Is there anything else about finance you want me to address? Let me know and I will add it to this post to make it easier for threadmarking.
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