Andy makes his first round-trip to the village (see Part 7). He sells apples, buys copper and returns to town with some copper and two credit notes (each note in circulation, ten in total, has a face value of SK100).
After holding the two credit notes for a week and having misplaced them twice, Andy thinks it best to return them to the bank.
Meanwhile, a couple of villagers with credit notes, six notes in total, have come to the bank and expressed their willingness to open an account. They have got their new accounts credited for the notes. (Could we interpret this as the villagers depositing the credit notes?)
The central bank has hired a new employee who has been tasked with taking in credit notes and opening accounts. As Andy arrives at the counter with notes, the newly-employed teller mistakes him for a villager, asks for his ID (assume no difference between a town ID and a village ID) and in all silence, apart from humming to himself, opens a new account for him. The teller credits the new account and debits the account "Credit notes in circulation", both with SK200.
Here's an overview of the bank ledger after the latest entries:
| BANK OVERVIEW | |||
| Deb(i)ts/Liabilities | Credits/Rights | ||
| Andy(1) | 950 | 200 | Credit notes in circulation |
| xx | xx | ||
| xx | 200 | Andy(2) | |
| xx | xx | ||
| xx | xx | ||
| xxx | xxx | ||
Andy finds out about the mistake when the teller gives him a new ETRS gadget (see Part 4 for more on the ETRS system and the gadget). Andy explains the situation to the teller and asks him to net the two accounts against each other and then close the new account. Employee debits new account and credits old account, both with SK200. (Could we interpret these two entries as Andy repaying some of his debt to the bank?) Then he closes the new account.
An overview of the bank ledger after the correction:
| BANK OVERVIEW | |||
| Deb(i)ts/Liabilities | Credits/Rights | ||
| Andy | 750 | 200 | Credit notes in circulation |
| xx | xx | ||
| xx | xx | ||
| xx | xx | ||
| xx | xx | ||
| xxx | xxx | ||
I have placed two questions within the text in parentheses. This is because I've come to see my posts more and more as conversation starters. Well, not really as starters, but as a continuation of the conversation taking place in the comments section of my posts. It is that (long, winding and, at times, frustrating) conversation which really matters to me. By writing these posts I want to feed that conversation and, I hope, take it forward, or at least on a somewhat new track when the old one starts to repeat itself too much (not that I personally wouldn't like repetition!).
Warm thanks go to Johan, Oliver and Roger for having kept up the conversation so far! When you put people with so different backgrounds – with a burning interest to all things monetary as the only common denominator – together, what you get is always going to be a surprise.
