Bank of Sol'Valen
With the return of Hytori sovereignty, a great building was erected next to the ancient Argyrocopieon, or royal mint, to house the financial apparatus of a reborn nation. This is the central bank of Sol'Valen as opposed to a commercial bank, and has many responsibilities under its royal mandate:
- Monetary policy: by setting the official interest rate and controlling the money supply;
- Financial stability: acting as the government's banker and as the bankers' bank;
- Reserve management: managing a Sol'Valen's foreign-exchange and gold reserves and government bonds;
- Banking supervision: regulating and supervising the banking industry, and currency exchange;
- Other functions include economic research, statistical collection, advice to the monarch in financial policy.
There are now central banks in the other principalities, which receive oversight from the Bank of Sol'Valen. While Taegan Sol'Eilran originally linked currency to gold reserves when the Guild of Coin rated their credit as extremely low. Once the economy was rebuilt, that link was dissolved in favor of more sophisticated financials, but the Hytori have never accepted the Guild's aven as their own currency.
Born Len'Tuilë, they were made treasurer by Taegan Sol'Eilran and, after nearly a century of loyalty and service to the crown and realm, Ailuin Sol'Eilran granted a patent of nobility to them and to their issue.
They sit upon the Crown Council and are the chief financial adviser of the Phoenix Monarch.
Few remember them as a child-soldier against those who oppressed the Hytori, as now they keep account of the receipts and expenditures from the royal treasury, receive reports from royal officials, supervise the collection of taxes and custom duties, manage the royal treasury, and supervise the three royal mints.
They also oversee a large number of offices and positions in the royal bureaucracy including the lesser officers in charge of mints, harbormasters, tax farmers, customs sergeants, factors, toll collectors, pursers, and commercial bankers.
Commercial Banking
Ancient Hytori bankers provided a variety of services; primarily, exchanging currencies, providing interest payments on deposited monies, acting as notaries and pawnbrokers, and the safeguarding of valuables. At the earliest recorded times, they are known to have participated as private enterprise, who in the first instance were greatly reliant on business generated by money-changing activity, but also accepted deposits and made and took payments from individual elves. They were present in the agorae or festival sites, changing the coinage of foreign merchants into local currency.
Contemporary Hytori bankers still follow ancient traditions to varying extents. Enough records of ancient mistakes such as late-stage capitalism exist that the Court of Princes decided to safeguard their people against the rise of so-called 'merchant princes' or 'robber barons' by limiting the size of commercial banks and robust oversight by royal ministers. Still, Val'Tuilë isn't the only new noble patent granted for economic and fiduciary acumen.
Large banks still exist, but are limited by law and scope. Most elves, from humble private citizens to noble folk, prefer to develop working relationships with individual bankers based on trust, and while cupidity still exists among the First People, the goal remains: an utopia.
Some temples also have treasuries of their own and are permitted to lend where they see fit, but it is exceedingly rare to find religious exemptions from the laws of the land. As such, they are treated by the Tahl Treasurer and their ministers much the same as banks and bankers.