Shipping Tickets

[Baroun Tardis]

Like many things, I see this as a "IMTU" thing.

IMTU, the TAS has a massive bank account.


Now, (based on the real world Banking structure),

....
I spent 5 yrs of my life supporting electronic payment systems for large international banks
I am glad that experience works out here

One of the things I love about the Traveller fan base is there's always someone with years of knowledge and experience on the topic who gives great answers.

Y'all rock!

 

[kilemall]

Actually, there is precedent in the OTU
Recall that the official collapse of the Second Imperium was noted as when one of the Imperial Regional banks refused a funds transfer from another Imperial Regional Bank.

This bit of historic information suggests the method GDW used was dead on.....even if it was also a Slow boat method.

I’m not suggesting EFT doesn’t happen, I am saying the RL examples you provide are predicated on real-time knowledge of the state of the institution and within days resolution of any questions about transfers.

Bonded instruments would assuredly be involved, but there would also be a reconciliation follow up mechanism as new ledger updates come in. That’s more for megacorps payments, or perhaps could reach down into ACS mortgages.

 

[Spinward Flow]

there would also be a reconciliation follow up mechanism as new ledger updates come in.

Well.
Now we know (part of the reason) why X-mail pays so well per ton for those 5 tons you need to spend on carrying it ...

Some of the info you're carrying is financial data updates.

 

[Dragoner]

It's not unusual for accounts to get sorted six months to a year down the road.

 

[coliver988]

It's not unusual for accounts to get sorted six months to a year down the road.

I'm reminded of when I worked for a cellular company (wrote & maintained their call rating/billing/inventory/accounting/POS/well, pretty much all the software) and getting roaming call records. Depending on the size of the roaming company, it could takes months for the call records (on tape!) to show up. So it was not unusual to see bills for calls made 2+ months in the past.

Of course, none of that matters at all now, but that was in the late 90s/early 2000s. Wonder if the roaming charges for those calls in the Gulf of Mexico that get picked up by the off-shore oil stations are still $20/minute?

 

[Dragoner]

I'm reminded of when I worked for a cellular company (wrote & maintained their call rating/billing/inventory/accounting/POS/well, pretty much all the software) and getting roaming call records. Depending on the size of the roaming company, it could takes months for the call records (on tape!) to show up. So it was not unusual to see bills for calls made 2+ months in the past.

Of course, none of that matters at all now, but that was in the late 90s/early 2000s. Wonder if the roaming charges for those calls in the Gulf of Mexico that get picked up by the off-shore oil stations are still $20/minute?

I bet they could, when we got cell phones at work back then they told us that they were a dollar a minute. I've also seen accounts get paid, and then the charges returned 3 months later, after the other businesses accounting reject them. Accounts receivable is such a nightmare, there is a saying that the hardest part of the job is getting paid.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

Financially, the 3I runs like the 18th century banking systems - You make arrangements in advance with a bank or carry lots of cash/gold. And those tickets are effectively notes. TAS tickets are well respected open tickets. One issued by A.N.Y. Merchant Ship is usable for that ship only. Forgery is a problem as anything that can be made can be copied - and a ticket register isn't all that viable with a lag of several weeks.

So you free trader has taken that group from starport A to starport E - but Starport E has no TAS - so you've been paid but can't swap the ticket for cash. Eventually you get to starport B and lo - the ticket was cashed weeks ago - yours is a clone!

 

[Commander Truestar]

It's still "simple" ... what it isn't is "instantaneous" anymore.

Instead, what you have is something similar to the circumstances that any reader of the manga Spice & Wolf would be familiar with, where information moves at the speed of couriers between merchant guild houses. There's CREDIT, DEBT and REPUTATION in play, along with the actual currencies and the goods (collateral for loans) involved.

After that, things get messy.

Comms in the Imperium were "Never" instantaneous....
However, if you study the origins of medieval banking, as I have spent some time(as a personal interest), you find that time-lapse is neither new nor insurmountable.

The origins of the "Personal Check" go back to letters of introduction and promise carried by travelers, from place to place.
Indeed, merchants began this with promises of payment still preserved in the collections a number of European banks.

In those letters, promises of payment over periods of months of travel were made and completed.

So, if you want to pretend to the simplicity of today's modern systems, you can. But they are ALL based on the messages of those merchants of the medieval world. And, since Traveller is based on the age of sail, the same limits apply in the OTU (and should be applied to all TU's which haven't allowed FTL communications) is a "weeks if not months" of travel to communications.

If you wish, there are still books on banking and finances from that period in many major libraries which you can use to research how it worked in the actual day of sail. You can also find very interesting reading on the basis of the stock exchanges(merchants making bets in Southern Manhattan near a "wall" for which a street was eventually named) and insurance(including the rise of a small financial firm in London named Lloyds...). The fact is that the system still works with the added time delay.
All computers do is make it faster by carrying the same data in packets across a network.
It does no change the data (except adding network and application headers) or how it works.

 

[Condottiere]

If I recall correctly, the Sumerians invented writing in order to keep track of their warehouse contents, and I'll assume, tax records.

And that the Templars were the first "modern" bankers, inventing the letter of credit for crusaders, who liquidated their assets, and weren't keen on carrying bags of coins.

 

[Dragoner]

In business school, they said it is from China around 8th cent. I mean I am also a certified financial manager, which I guarantee is a lot less exciting than it sounds. Banking and nat. monetary policy is tied, for example if the dollar went back to being commodity based like gold, it would immediately lose 80% of its value, and liquidity would disappear as well, which is why we don't do things like the old days. Forgery, counterfeiting are merely cost benefit analysis considerations. I play the game face value, because too much bean counting, or using a spreadsheet is like work.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[whartung]

You make arrangements in advance with a bank or carry lots of cash/gold.

The only quibble here is that I think that there is no need to routinely carry "cash/gold". Or I should say that there is little need to carry things of portable fungible value, rather folks will mostly just use a "credit card".

Today, many folks carry credit cards, which while not necessarily secure devices, they are safe for the consumer. I you lose your card, or the credential (i.e. the cc#) is stolen, there are mechanics in place to protect the consumer from loss, and the banks have processes and procedures to limit their losses. Because of these devices, there is little reason for many to carry "cash" or any other thing that can be readily stolen.

We also have things like gift cards, which offer the fungibility of cash, but is marginally safer to carry. If you lose the card, you can actually get it replaced, you just can't get any monies lost between when you lost it and when you reported it (and, of course, you need to have all the details of the card for the reporting -- but who writes that stuff down?).

So, anyway, the point being, I expect that there will be a safe alternative to cash that can typically resist be stolen, with a banking system designed to manage and handle the float, even when transaction take weeks to process. I don't see a bunch of travellers leaving a ship only to be robbed at gunpoint in a dark alley of all of their monies. They can take their handheld, they can take their chipcard, but they won't be able to use them without the pin code, or biometric release that only the authorized holders can provide.

 

[Condottiere]

I thought it was obvious.

Traveller's cheques.