Bank & Financial System Overhaul

[Brant]

Bank & Financial System Overhaul
By: Brant

Current Issue(s):
At this point in time, banks are really only utilized to collect paychecks by interacting with a GUI at the desk of a Teller. Otherwise, the bank in Vinewood along with the bank in Paleto Bay are used as safe-zones for players to park their vehicles while they go off and do other jobs throughout the State. Outside of that, there's not really much use for the bank which at face value, isn't too big of an issue but it does restrict a fair bit of Roleplay which could provide an added layer of realism to the server. From a Civilian's perspective, there's nothing to do RP wise with the bank other than just going and getting your check. For criminals, bank robberies are entirely possible, but are really only possible with hostages. Since the bank isn't used for anything, getting those hostages in the most realistic manner is basically impossible.

Suggestion #1 - Add Banks & Bank Branches
Currently, we really only refer to FLEECA Bank and LS Bank / Paleto Bank as the three banks within San Andreas. In GTA 5's lore, there are actually a total of 9 different banks / bank names, some with physical locations and others just as banks advertised as sponsors or with websites that you can access. The following Banks are openly advertised within GTA 5:

• Fleeca Bank
• Whan-Q (Sponsor only brand, no physical locations)
• Lombank - 2 main offices and 3 branches within Los Santos
• Maze Bank
• Pacific Standard Bank
• Kayton
• Bank of Liberty
• Blaine County Savings Bank

I'm not recommending that we add all of these bank brands into the community, but with the multiple different companies, this could allow for competition between banks, or even allow for additional legal factions to pop up to run them.

Let's say Fleeca Bank, Maze Bank, Pacific Standard Bank, and Blain County Savings Bank are all active banks. Players can have the option to open accounts with any one of these banks depending on what they're looking for. Banks can set member features based off of the account you choose to open. For example:

• Fleeca Bank is run by a faction, and the faction's leadership requires a monthly / weekly account upkeep fee for every single account opened with their bank.
• Maze Bank is run by another faction, and their faction's leadership doesn't require upkeep fees, but costs more to open an account.

This may seem slightly confusing, but the overall goal here is to provide multiple different choices for people who want to have bank accounts. Wham-Q is technically an international bank, so this bank can be used as an "off-shore bank account" for criminal enterprises to store dirty money.

Suggestions #2 - Add Bank Accounts and different Payment Methods
Currently when you get paid from doing any legal / legit job or being a part of a legal faction, your salary is sent to the bank for you to pick up automatically. The money isn't directly added to your account as you still have to go claim it. My suggestion is the following:

• A character does not start out with a Bank Account when they first join the server. The money they start with will be given to them in cash, and they will have to go to one of the banks within the state to open an account.
• If a player does not have a bank account and they are receiving a paycheck, they must collect their paycheck (a "paper" version) from any bank within the State, and cash it. Cashing checks means the bank will give the player the cash value of the check. Check Cashing often costs a percentage of the amount on the check which should motivate players to open a bank account.
• The different banks within the state that are owned by different entities may set account regulations & membership features as a way to gain more account holders. This ultimately creates competition, making these services more beneficial to account holders.
  • Example: FLEECA Bank requires account holders to pay a $5000 upkeep fee bi-weekly or monthly (depending on what the owner(s) want. to require) but opening an account with FLEECA does not initially cost any money, and there's no minimum opening fee.
  • Pacific Standard Bank requires new members to deposit $20,000 to their account as a minimum opening-balance, and charge new members an account opening fee of $3,000, but there is no upkeep fee.
  • Both banks may do an automated background check and apply additional opening fees depending on if the individual opening the account is considered "high risk"
• Players can have different accounts under their name with the same bank, or other banks. They can select where they want their work money / government checks to be deposited. This would be beneficial for players with personal income / job income as well as a player-owned business.

Suggestions #3 - Change the way Salaries / Payments are issued
Going more in-depth about paychecks and direct deposit, Government paychecks that are issued every hour, along with faction paychecks and job paychecks are all sent to your "Salary" that you pick up at the bank. While that's slightly realistic, there's definitely ways that this could be more realistic.

• When accepting a job or accepting an invite to a faction, it is the player's responsibility to "sign up" for direct deposit if they have a bank account.
• If Direct Deposit is not set up, paychecks are distributed in "paper" form and must be picked up at a Bank.
• Paper checks that are not picked up within a certain amount of time get trashed / discarded.
• "Debt" incurred by lengthy prison sentences, defaulting on loans, etc. should no longer be automatically taken from paychecks until debt equals out to $0.
• If a player is in debt, debt can be automatically taken from a player's bank account if they have direct deposit set up. If they do not have direct deposit, or have cancelled the ability for direct deposit to be used, players can still pick up paper checks and cash them to receive the money. Putting the money in a bank account with a "legal" or "legit" bank will automatically pay some of that debt.
• If a player is actively making money (active on the server) and does not pay back their debt, after awhile their bank accounts will be closed with a chance of not being able to be reopened until debt is paid off.
• Money stored in "off shore" bank accounts will not be touched if the account holder is in debt.

Suggestions #4 - Bank Robberies & Bank Insurance
I'm not entirely sure how the server determines how much money to give out when money is stolen from the vault, but I think it'd like to recommend that it's based on account holders and the type of bank it is.

• Currently, the server stores the amount of money players have on them, in their salary, and in their bank account. Bank robberies should give out a % of money based on how many account holders they have, and how much money their account holders have stored in their bank accounts.
• Banks with less locations but bigger facilities should pay out more but should be harder to breach whereas small bank branches like FLEECA Bank on Route 68 or Great Ocean Highway should be relatively easy to break into, but should not pay out a large amount of money.
• If an offshore bank is robbed (could be out on the island from the most recent GTA Online update?), account holders could run the risk of losing their money as offshore banks like that would not have insurance.

Suggestions #5 - Law Enforcement & Government Regulations
Regardless of anything else, banks across the world are subject to government regulations and law enforcement oversight if they wish to retain their status as a reputable bank that is supported overall by both the state and federal government. Due to this, I recommend that:

• If a Law Enforcement investigation into financial crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, contract scamming, etc. Detectives with a warrant should be able to review incoming and outgoing transaction history of the individual(s) being investigated.
• If a Law Enforcement investigation proves to be conclusive, Detectives with the support of the Judicial System should be able to freeze bank accounts and/or seize illegally obtained money from bank accounts at banks that are legitimate. (This specifically does not include offshore bank accounts).

Conclusion
Overall, there's a lot we could do with a more dynamic banking / economy system which can open a lot of doors for players looking to get involved with legal factions that are not directly involved with government jobs (PD, MD, SD, etc.). Alongside of creating more unique roleplay experiences for players, this also should drive traffic at least somewhat consistently to bank branches throughout the State which can be beneficial for criminal factions to have a more stable, realistic flow into robbing banks. This should also open the door for future updates to various different aspects of the server like the money delivery job, bank loans,  and so on.

Even if all of these suggestions are not feasible, I'd like to see at least one heavily considered. There's so much room for some pretty awesome RP to happen with banking and finance giving every aspect of the community (Law Enforcement / Criminals / Civilians) a way to engage in some unique roleplay. I'd also like to apologize for the wall of text, unfortunately there's not much visual representation that I can do since a lot of this would be just back-end systems with the ability for people to interact with them.

[IAmTurtle]

I believe Osvaldon had leaked one a while ago. But had to post pone it due to bigger more potent issues that need to be dealt with right now.

 

+1 reguardless

 

[Virus5310]

Huge +1

[DjBricheta]

Awesome suggestion and big +1.
I am also aware that Osvaldon was planning to do some overhaul on the banks. Hopefully he'll consider some of these suggestions you wrote here.

[Xoza]

+1

[Francis]

+1