The Central Bank of Trabzon (Turkish: Trabzon Merkez Bankası, or TMB) is the national bank of the Second Empire of Trabzon. It was established in 1987 and regulates the country's banking system and financial policy. The Central Bank of Trabzon consolidated control of all the assets of several defunct Turkish state-owned banks which existed in the region prior to Doomsday, including Halkbank, Ziraat Bank, İşbank, and the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. It issues its own currency, the İperpiron.
History[]
All Turkish state-owned banks in Trabzon were forced to close their doors following the Doomsday nuclear exchange, which obliterated the traditional banking centers of Ankara and Istanbul. From 1983 until 1987, Trabzon lacked functioning financial institutions and much of the civilian population's savings evaporated due to local and worldwide economic collapse. In December 1987, a special decree of Trabzon's self-styled emperor, Altan Sahin created the Central Bank of Trabzon to regulate the financial system. Per the decree, this new agency was to act as the sole issuer of legal tender and inherited the local assets and values of the various pre-Doomsday state-owned banks. The TMB took up the evacuated building of the Central Bank of Turkey as its head office in the capital, and soon opened other branch offices in the cities of Rize, Ordu, Giresun, Artvin, and Ardahan.
Initially, the TMB did nothing but print and circulate the military regime's new currency. From 1988 to 1992, Turkish Lira banknotes issued between 1960 and 1983 were used for this purpose, albeit defaced with a special adhesive stamp. In 1992, as paper and ink supplies became available, the new monetary unit was finally introduced into circulation: the Trabzonian İperpiron (which replaced the Lira at par). While the TMB was engaged in this process, it became clear that the regime expected it to act as the de facto replacement for all former domestic banks, and re-establish essential services. This was at first considered a rather pointless exercise, given the complete absence of formal exchange anywhere in the country, but with the introduction of the new monetary unit it became a much more pressing matter.
Most of the state banks' financial records had been lost after Doomsday, but bank officials nevertheless requested that repayments on loans previously given out by these institutions be resumed to the TMB. Former debtors and creditors alike ignored the request, and the regime soon discovered that it could not locate the holders of the most outstanding accounts. More successful was the opening of new accounts for state parastatals and private businesses granted various concessions to carry out economic activity. All transfers between the state budget and state parastatals, as well as between the parastatals, were routed through the TMB. Nevertheless, the TMB made few loans, took in few deposits, and conducted little in the way of real business for many years.
Like many central banks, the TMB resembled less of a traditional commercial bank and more of an administrative arm of the Ministry of Finance. However, in the absence of any other financial institutions, the TMB became forced to shoulder many of the other responsibilities typically delegated to specialized and private banks in the pre-Doomsday era. To that end, it created six subordinate departments during the early 2000s, each of which provided specialized banking services: investment, commerce, agriculture, savings, liquidations, and foreign trade. The savings department in particular normalized the TMB's relationship with the public and allowed it to serve as a savings bank for individuals, since the TMB had previously only dealt with the public sector and a select few large private entities.
Organization[]
The Trabzonian financial system is defined by two characteristics: the monopoly position of the TMB, and the specialization of various departments of the bank, which function as individual financial intermediaries. Since the early 2000s, the TMB has essentially monopolized household saving and made it available to the government for its investment activity. Households receive their state employee wages, pensions, and any other transfer payments from the state through TMB in currency payments. They could either hold the currency or deposit it in a savings account with the bank's savings department. The savings deposits are characterized by low interest rates of two percent in nominal terms per annum. The household can make accounting payments for utilities and other services through debits to these savings accounts.
The TMB's books hold accounts for most domestic enterprises, as well as all the government agencies. The bank also controls the flow of financial resources allocated from the state budget for the public sector's production of goods and services. Under their individual financial plans, state parastatals are allocated working capital to complete their goals. When a parastatal purchases inputs from another enterprise, whether state-owned or private, the supplier presents the TMB with the invoice and the necessary transfers are made the recipient's account to the supplier's account. If sufficient funds were not available in the recipient's account, TMB provides credit to the recipient and ensure the supplier is compensated on time. Accordingly, all private enterprises that contract with the public sector are compelled to open accounts with TMB, as they could not otherwise receive payment for services rendered to the state. Since budget balance is not required of the public sector, it can finance any differences between expenditures and revenues through credits from the TMB.
Trabzon's military regime has refrained from establishing specialized banks, and although not prohibited, foreign-owned private banks have encountered severe restrictions trying to make inroads into the financial sector. There is essentially one bank for the entire economy, which has enabled the regime to impose tight control over the use of currency and credit for making payments. Due to the effective state capture of most economic sectors through the armed forces, the assets of the financial system were mostly government liabilities in any case.
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