Daming: The system rejected my request for salted fish

"As for the off-site deposit and withdrawal business, it depends on their own capabilities, whether they can produce ticket stubs, receipts and the like."

"But if you want to open a bank, you must go through the court's review and confirm that you have sufficient financial resources before you can apply to open a bank."

"At the same time, they must pay a deposit to the court to ensure that they will not take the depositors' money and run away."

Having said that, Wei Wu gave Zhu Yuanzhang some time to digest what he said.

After about two or three minutes, he continued:

"The Ming Dynasty has a vast territory, and it will inevitably grow even larger in the future. It is impossible for the imperial court to take care of every aspect."

"We only need to cover the major cities and the less powerful secondary cities. The towns below can be handed over to private merchants."

"In addition to providing convenience to the people, it is also about making money flow more smoothly. Otherwise, it will just be stagnant."

Hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes were filled with doubt again.

"Xiao Wu, if people keep their money in savings, how can the money flow? Also, opening a bank requires approval."

"And they also need to pay a deposit to the court. Private merchants probably won't be willing to pay money when there's no profit!"

"Also, the imperial court opened money houses to facilitate merchants, but if merchants opened money houses, would ordinary people really deposit money there?"

Hearing this, Wei Wu chuckled and said:

"They will definitely be willing to do it, and they will even rush to do it, because money banks are a very profitable industry."

Hearing Wei Wu's words, Zhu Yuanzhang's doubts became even more intense, and then he heard Wei Wu continue:

"Mr. Zhu, are you thinking that merchants deposit money in banks to facilitate their transactions?"

"But the people can keep their own money, so why do they have to deposit it in a bank, right?"

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded, admitting that this was indeed what he thought in his heart.

Seeing this, Wei Wu immediately said:

"This involves the other two businesses of the bank: interest and lending. Interest refers to the interest paid to depositors."

"For example, if you deposit a hundred taels of silver in my bank, as long as you keep it for a full year, I will pay you one tael of silver in interest."

"However, the interest rate issue is quite complicated. In the future, you can call together officials from the Ministry of Revenue to discuss a reasonable interest rate."

After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang felt that the left side of his head was water and the right side of his head was flour, which turned into paste when shaken.

According to Wei Wu, when others deposit money with him, he has to pay interest to them.

This is clearly a loss of money, what does it have to do with making money, let alone making huge profits.

Moreover, if people can get money back after saving it, then unless they have urgent needs, they will definitely save their money until they die without touching it.

In this situation, how can money flow?

However, just when Zhu Yuanzhang was confused, Wei Wu's next words cleared up the fog in his heart.

"It may seem like they are losing money by opening a bank, but in fact they have more capital in their hands."

"For example, a merchant takes 100 taels of silver as capital, and after six months of trading, he turns that 100 taels into 120 taels."

"So if he has 1,000 taels of capital, he can earn 200 taels of silver in half a year."

Before, Zhu Yuanzhang was thinking in his heart that if the people’s money was all saved, how could the money be circulated?

Now, after listening to Wei Wu's words, he finally understood that although the people saved money, the merchants would not let the money just sit there.

No wonder Wei Wu had previously said that money houses should pay a deposit, in order to avoid some of the risks of this business.

Even if the owner of the money shop loses money in business, the people who deposited money will not lose all their money.

At the same time, a lean camel is bigger than a horse. In addition to money, merchants also have houses and land, which can be used to pay off debts.