True Colours of a RESELLER come Bank Manager

I thought I'd pop buy Tzepu new bank at Fort Argus and see what really was on offer to the community.

All I see by taking loans from this bank is extremely high weighted risk heavily in favour of the bank. Considering we have a reseller that has been very successful at convincing the community his valuation are spot-on over the years, it's quite ironic that he sets a completely new sub-standard loan to value calculations against YOUR items as his collateral.

I would agree that you would need to mitigate a "reasonable" risk when loaning funds, and undervalue core items so ensure you cover falls in market prices, but we have to ask oursleves so these valuation hold any morality? I think not.

So.....

1) Are these loan values, Tzepu true estimate of what he believes items are worth? If so looks like we are going to see some big drops in prices.

2) Or does he have a box of tissues beside his desk, watching the clock tick down and getting very exciting about his new items? In other words is the purpose of the bank to loan to the community, or is it a colourful way of dressing up the hope of obtaining items at grossly undervalue to then resell at a massive profit?

It's likely Tzepu will defend his position stating that due to current available funds, he is attempting to offer as many loans as possible with those funds, and hopes to adjust valuations when more funds are available. Well in that case I suggest the community considers the massive risk to their items taking such loans right now should they fail to repay within the 30 days.

Not content with severe undervaluation, we also have a 50% loan interest rate. Anyone think that is reasonable considering the bank isn't taking any real risks?

So lets take a mod fap. Tzepu thinks this is only worth 80K peds (not 140K - 170K that these resellers will happily try and sell it at). Iif you loaned it for a year your interest bill would be 40K peds. However loans are valued on 30 days so 40K/12 = 3,333.33 peds interest for the month (or approx 110 peds per day)

Here's a pic of some chips and the offers available. Kind of funny that Tzepu sold an X corr the other day for over 6K peds (originally valuing it at 10K), yet on his bank system he has valued them at 1K peds.

So for those that don't understand it the item owner borrowing a loan is not only incurring a rate of 50% APR, but they are also putting thier items at massive risk of loss.

So why all the gratz for this bank opening? To me this is clearing about maximising opportunity, putting all the cards in favour of the bank hoping theres some cool items to claim from unfortunate players that run into financial difficulties.

In my opinion I suggest the community stay well clear, until the bank reconsideres its position on APR and valuations.

I think a reseller is the wrong person to run such a venture. I do not feel any positives for the community with this at all.

Feel free to suck up the banker/reseller though hey they been telling you the truth for years to line their own pockets. Or use your own head and think about it.

Rickard Rick England

Fort Argus Bank is open for business!

Tzepelea Tzepu Geri: I'm proud and happy to announce that Fort Argus Bank is once again operational!

As you enter the main room of the bank, the Bank Teller can be found to the right!
He’s an angel so he’s hard to miss and he’ll play nice.

Unfortunately the bank building is a little bugged here and there and I'm waiting for Mindark to fix it so it can be used at its full potential. Until then I can't place items on the main floor of the building and I can't make it look more welcoming.

The yearly loan % and loan duration will be adjusted depending on demand and the amount of funds I have available.

Additional bank services are being worked on.
With some help from Mindark I hope it will become more than a pawnshop in the future.

Short rundown on how it works

You can take a ped loan for any item ingame using that item as collateral. As standard all the stackable items have 90% of TT as loan value and all the other items have 90% of full TT as loan value. Because of that some of the really high TT items will show quite a lot - loan value, not good but that's how it works atm.

The bank teller can take a few seconds to load all the item list so be patient. Use the item search or just look at specific item categories for a smoother experience.

I've added higher loan values for most of the good UL items and will constantly work on improving that list.

If you're planning to take out a loan on an expensive item and you see the bank still offers the standard 90% contact me ingame or here by PM and I will try to adjust it.

After taking a loan the item goes in the bank vault and you get a Loan Deed detailing loan amount and loan expiration date. The loan deeds are tradable.

The interest you see in the bank is yearly. To see the interest for your loan term devide the yearly % with the period of the loan. Atm it's 30 days loan period so /12. The interest on the loan is calculated daily so you only pay for what u use.

When you want to repay a loan (you can do it anyday of the loan period) trade the Bank Teller to see the amount needed to pay back.

If you fail to pay it back in time the Loan Deed expires (same as a mining deed), gets removed and the item remains in the possession of the bank.

How yearly interest works

At the moment the bank has 50% yearly interest. The current loan term is 30 days. Both these numbers might change in the future. Any change won't affect any loan taken before the change and just future loans.

As it is now 50%/year means
50/12 so 4.16%/month
50/365 so 0.137%/day

If you loan 1k peds for the full 30 days you will have to pay back 41.6 ped interests so 1041.6 ped
If you pay back the same loan after 1 day you will pay only 1.37ped interest, 1001.37ped

How loan values are set

This business is a bank or pawnshop as many like to call it now. It is not an item buying shop like some are mislead to believe.
I will work in improving the loan values for items as time permits. The process is slow and time consuming.

The values I have set are not what I think those items are worth.

I do not want to expose myself to a high risk of getting the bank filled with items that will be left there to expire on purpose. This has happened many many times in the past to other banks and that's why some of them are out of business now.
On the top items like imp and mod faps the values set are lower to make it possible to use them for loans. If I would set close to real value the bank would probably never have enough free peds for a loan to be taken.

Need to take a big loan?

If you want to take a big loan all you have to do is contact me and we will work it out.
It's possible to reserve peds for a loan, to be sure the bank will have the desired amount of peds on a certain date.
Work on loan ammount for items, make it higher or lower depending on the exact amount you need.
Work on loan term, if you are not sure when you can pay it back a longer loan period can be set.