After mother had finished her business with the woman behind the counter, I had to place a few drops of blood on a metal card to activate it, and then I had my own account with the merchant’s guild! From the long lecture I endured, I learned all the rules of the card I was given.

First, it was magical and only the person blooded to it could use it. If a merchant didn’t know me personally, I could be asked to shed a few drops of blood on the card to prove it was mine. For a valid owner, the card would give off a white glow. For anyone else, a black glow. Having a card glow black was terms for immediate arrest no matter which kingdom or land I traveled to. I’d have to prove to the landowner, merchant’s guild, temple, or local knight order that I was the proper owner of the card, and that might take a while to accomplish as my blood would have to be compared to the samples held on file here at the branch where I opened the account.

I was responsible for all debts that were acquired by the use of my card. The merchants (and other places which accepted the cards such as most temples, knight houses, schools, and moneychangers) used a magical system which recorded account transactions. Sometimes there could be a delay in all places information being updated, so if I had 1,000 gold in my account and purchased a sword in one shop, I might also be able to purchase armor in another shop for 1,000 gold, and then jewelry in a third shop for another 1,000 gold.

In that case, of course, I’d end up being 2,000 gold in debt and penalties and interest would start to accrue on my account. If I didn’t arrange to pay my debt within three months, a bounty would be placed on me for my arrest (Which would also be added to my debt – I was responsible for paying my own bounty fees in such a case!) and my property and holdings could be taken and seized to pay my bills.

There was no “bankruptcy forgiveness” in this world. If what I owned couldn’t be sold and cover what my debt was, I could end up getting a forced servitude or even slavery! Money, responsible management of it, and merchant accounts were a serious business in this world!

Should I die, my account funds would be transferred to whomever I designated as my “heir” (right now it was Mother), and a 10% fee would be applied for the transfer of ownership. Use of blood for verification had to be fresh, drawn in the sight of the merchants, and wouldn’t work with “old blood” such as if someone tried to take a few drops from a bloody rag or bandage.

Just as withdrawals could take a while to be verified and updated, deposits could also lag behind. I might deposit 1,000 gold in a small town, travel to a large city, and then the coin wouldn’t show as being in my account for several days until everything passed through the proper channels. Sometimes a merchant might take me at my word and allow me to spend coin that wasn’t in my account, but that was simply a merchant being nice and lenient. They didn’t have to give me any such leeway and the best bet was not to deposit coin that I might need to spend in the near future.

With the use of magic, what the people of this world had developed was very similar to a modern ATM system, if one simply ignored the delays between transactions updating.

Another difference in how things worked in this world, and how I knew them to work on Earth was the use of “proxies”. I could designate people various access to my account – at a modest fee each month of course – and allow them limited ability to transact with my funds. For example, I could add De’Nara and Le’Nara to my account and set them a daily limit of 2 gold which they could spend for a room at an inn and meals somewhere, and they both could access my funds to that limit.

As long as they already had cards of their own, any merchant in good standing with the guild could act as a representative and authorize the transactions, with blood being shed by all parties involved. If the person I wanted to authorize to use my account didn’t have a card of their own, they’d have to come to one of the main guild houses like this one and get one first.

Merchant cards were generally a sign of wealth and prestige as most commoners simply traded copper, silver, gold – or bartered goods for goods. There wasn’t any chance in hell that I’d be able to use my card to get an apple from a farmer I passed on the road. They were used by merchants and other organizations for large transfer of funds from one place to another.

Many shops would offer a small discount for people who had merchant cards. People who had them were desirable customers that you always wanted to keep for repeat business, and that made them something quite useful to have. The only drawback was they had a monthly fee on the account, and the larger your total deposit, the larger the fee became. If you had 100 gold or less in an account, the fee was one silver. From 100 to 1000 gold, the fee became one gold. For every 0 after that, the fee increased one gold. (10,000 gold limit was two gold a month. 100,000 gold limit was three gold a month. 1,000,000 gold limit was four gold a month. )

I’m certain there’s some way for explaining it using a math formula, but I’m not going to wrack my brain to figure it out. It’s good enough for me to know that my monthly fee is currently one gold per month. Since the average commoner only earns about thirty gold a month, it’s no wonder the cards are considered “for the wealthy class”.

If I somehow increase my deposit to where I have more than 1,000 gold in my account, I’ll be spending two gold each month in upkeep fees -- it’s all something I’ll have to be careful of so I don’t overdraw and get myself in debt.

It took most of the afternoon for them to fill out all the first time paperwork, have an alchemist draw several vials of blood, and explain everything to me. Still though, when it was all said and done, by the time mother and I went back home, I finally felt comfortable enough that I could finally claim to understand how banking worked in this new world.