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An Interview with EBANK’s Ricdic

Published on 02. Nov, 2008 ... written by Jacob Mei, Tags: Articles, Latest

by Jacob Mei … I had a chance to sit down with EBANK’s founder and Managing Director, Ricdic and talk to him about some of the things EBANK has gone through during its existence as well as what he hopes to see in the future for this digital bank.

Jacob Mei: Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions for us.

Ricdic: Thanks for having me at Eve-Mag

Jacob Mei: First, why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself in EVE, what do you enjoy doing in game?

Ricdic: I am in every way possible a carebear. I enjoy production, research, trade and character interaction. I don’t pvp, I consider ganking of miners/pirate gatecamps to be griefing and I generally dislike the entire pvp aspect of Eve (I don’t dislike that it is here as it’s crucial, I just personally am not interested in those areas of the game)

Jacob Mei: How long have you been playing EVE?

Ricdic: I am coming up to 4.5 years old now in Eve. It has been quite a roller coaster ride as Eve has undergone considerable structural changes.

Jacob Mei: What made you decide to start up EBANK?

Ricdic: I have always tried to challenge myself in public ventures. I was affiliated with EIB (the bank scam) as a bank teller who got burnt along with everyone else. I wanted to prove that a bank could work with the key points being that EBANK would have all the regulation and security that EIB never had.

Jacob Mei: How long has EBANK been running for now?

Ricdic: We have been running now for approximately 12 months. The idea was first put into discussion on the market forums on 10^th July 2007. I believe our doors opened in early October 2007.

Jacob Mei: Did you always want to be a banker in a MMO or did you start playing with something else in mind?

Ricdic: No other game has the level of economic depth that Eve has. In Eve you can immerse yourself into something not available in RL. I initially played Eve as I enjoyed running missions. However I was drawn to the Market Discussion forums after a year or two where investments and banks and other player run unique ventures were available. The biggest selling point for Eve being the ability to craft virtually any future or career that you wanted. A player can go through their Eve life as a random or they can find a trait to distinguish themselves by. Some forge their names by specific attack tactics or mercenary operations or even being Veldspar Dreadnought miners.

Jacob Mei: How many players are employed to run EBANK?

Ricdic: We have 15 members of staff at time of writing.

Jacob Mei: An operation like EBANK obviously takes a lot of time and dedication to pull off successfully and to do this for nothing would be a bit of a stretch, how much isk do EBANK’s employees typically get as payment for their work?

Ricdic: Staff salaries have actually just undergone a considerable modification. Our staff were paid very little over our first year of operation as we wanted to reinvest profits to ensure we had a solid banking platform. Now that we are in a very healthy financial position the new salary structure has been implemented.

In current form EBANK has approximately 10 different roles available. These include Tellers, Loan Officers, Directors etc. Each role has a base monthly retainer provided. Each role has performance bonus modifiers in place. This structure is to provide our staff with incentive to work harder in return for salary bonuses. Our HR team are responsible for Payroll and bonus determinations. The average base salary is 120m per month per player and bonuses can reach as high as 500m per month per character.

Jacob Mei: How is EBANK run as opposed to the few other banks in EVE?

Ricdic: EBANK has a highly functional website with complete API data tracking. This reduces manual workload phenomenally. We are also governed by a board of directors well trusted in their respective Eve Online fields of play. All savings and checking accounts allow instant access to funds (short of delays to process withdrawals). We also have very specific financial rules and regulations in regards to amounts of cash on hand per character to limit exposure to scams. The idea behind EBANK is that if a staff member were to scam the bank could absorb the loss and continue to operate as per normal. To date no staff have ever scammed EBANK.

Jacob Mei: The quality of work exhibited by EBANK seems to be at a level that real banks function at, are any of EBANK’s employees employed by actual banks in the real world or have degrees in banking?

Ricdic: I believe at least two of our staff have economic degrees of some sort whilst others have various degrees in programming, project management and the likes. Personally my RL education is in the form of technical knowledge and customer service accreditations.

Jacob Mei: Aside from trust, what stops you from just walking away with the now one trillion ISK that EBANK has acquired from its customers?

Ricdic: We have very strict internal security procedures as was mentioned above. No one player has access to an amount of funding that could hurt the bank. I have access to the most in EBANK and generally even if I were to scam my yield would be approximately 130 billion isk (barely 10% of EBANK value). Most of our funds are tied up in investments, loans and subsidiary corporations that are secured by multiple members of staff.

Jacob Mei: Some time ago EBANK’s website renewal came up and the price tag was about 300 USD. After asking for donations you quickly reached and even surpassed the 300 USD goal. Could you share with us what sort of items you use that would require such a hefty bill for a bank in an MMO?

Ricdic: EBANK was intentionally built on top of microsoft’s .NET platform which runs on a Windows server. We decided against running Mysql for our database as it had been too unreliable in the past. EBANK is a mission critical application where losing data means that we can’t trust any of our data anymore. So going with SQL Server was a good call, to ensure the security and accuracy of all data retrieved. Our current server comes with an SLA and 99.9% uptime guarantee as well as 24/7 support available on hand.

We want to provide a premium service to our clients and in turn understand the need to pay a premium to keep the site at an optimal level for the amount of traffic generated through it.

Jacob Mei: Do you feel that asking for donations to keep the website running as opposed to your group paying for it yourselves has helped in legitimizing EBANK in the eyes of EVE players?

Ricdic: It’s something we didn’t want to do. Initially we were paying the costs out of our own pockets however some players have come forth requesting to donate to support EBANK. Therefore there is a banner on our forums for a paypal link for anyone wanting to donate to server costs. I believe most customers seeing the level of detail and quality put into EBANK in terms of interface, operational structure, customer service and historical success are the key points that legitimize EBANK. The only way EBANK can truly prove their legitimacy is to continue doing what we have been doing for the past year.

Jacob Mei: EBANK has had an uphill battle with the fact that it started after EIB, the infamous scam that claimed to be, of all things, the first bank EVE has seen. What were some of the things you had to overcome in the first few months of EBANKs existence?

Ricdic: Prior to launch EBANK needed to show it’s prospective clients that it was going to perform on a whole different level to EIB. Constant auditing, limits on amounts on hand and limits on our growth. EIB had none of these things. EIB Audits didn’t take place until after it was too late. We have a few select auditors such as LaVista Vista who confirm that financial transfers are going to intended recipients. LaVista tracks movement from both the EBANK Ricdic wallet and the tellers wallets.

The largest challenge was that I happened to be an EIB Bank Teller when it was operational. So attempting to start a bank after working for the last bank that scammed was met with a considerable amount of criticism. My focus as CEO of EBANK has been in customer confidence. I have no restrictions on my personal information and EBANK tries to keep an open door policy (we try to give out as much information as possible).

EBANK was largely a group effort and I believe this has been paramount to it’s success. Both staff and forum posters have assisted in ideas and planning for EBANK to ensure it can be the most secure financial entity in Eve whilst not able to be directly governed by CCP.

Jacob Mei: If the opperatunity presented itself and Dr.EyjoG were available to conduct an audit of EBANK, IE an outside source telling the community that your ligit, would you allow the good Dr. to look at your books?

Ricdic: Definitely, I don’t like our chances though. We would love to have CCP approval and in some way CCP oversight to guarantee EBANK.

Jacob Mei: As the founder of EBANK, do you feel that you and your group are still fighting an uphill battle to win the publics trust that EBANK is legitimate or do you feel that you have made some ground?

Ricdic: I believe there are different sectors to the public. I believe we have been able to collect the trust of those who reside in the Market Discussion forums. The biggest advertising for EBANK is word of mouth and this is where our growth has come from. We are currently looking to improve brand awareness to other forum areas and simply players of Eve. This will be done through a Fanfest presence as well as EON advertising among other things in the future.

I feel there are many players who will never consider EBANK a legitimate operation. These people may have lost funds in EIB or other operations, or they may believe that their own lack of morals are shared by the people running EBANK. They may even believe that greed will always prevail. In a game like Eve where there are no implications for theft/scam trust becomes a valuable commodity. CCP won’t get involved if funds are lost due to scams. It is understandable that some players will never consider EBANK to be viable. All we, as a corporation, can do is continue to prove ourselves legitimate. Unfortunately the only time it will be truly proven will be the day we close our doors and repay all customers.

Jacob Mei: Early on in EBANK’s existence you offered not only checking but savings accounts as well. Some time later you stopped issuing Savings accounts and announced you would not bring them back, could you explain why this was decided?

Ricdic: Operational status is critical within EBANK. It’s essential that we keep the financial health of the bank of high quality. The only thing worse than a scam is a default (as can be seen by the world economy right now).

EBANK’s income currently could support an interest rate to the tune of approximately 7% per month. However we are heavily reinvesting into the bank to account for the occasional loan default or internal loss.

Another important area is that if we reintroduced our savings accounts this would cause an influx of funds into EBANK. In current form we have between 5-15 billion isk per day being deposited and approximately 2-8 billion isk per day being withdrawn. As funds come through they are invested into different sectors. However EBANK is currently dealing with over 1.2 trillion isk. In current form the deposit to withdrawal ratios are perfectly in line with our investing.

Finally, we have a highly anticipated stock exchange in design currently. Due to the heavily advanced nature of this stock exchange there have been considerable delays in it’s deployment. We expect the release of this exchange coupled with the advanced features it provides will provide a large positive impact on the Secondary Market (that of ipos, bonds and other public operations).

In alignment with the exchange we will be providing EBANK bonds with fixed term returns above those of normal accounts however they will have restricted access periods (basically a CD or Term Deposit) and set maturity dates. To give an example on the quality of the exchange, those bonds will be tradable. If you need funds tied up in a bond you can sell the bond on the exchange. Alternatively you can cash your bond into EBANK at a penalty (due to not meeting the Term Deposit). So whilst funds won’t be directly available there will be ways you can make those funds available. This also opens up room for true Stock Brokers and Day Traders, something Eve hasn’t really seen before (with the exception of the older exchanges RESx and EGSE).

The reason the existing exchanges haven’t taken off was simply due to customer numbers. When EBANK releases it’s stock exchange it will instantly have over 2,800 customers aware of it which will encourage competition and quantity trading. The EBANK Stock Exchange will also be entirely automated meaning purchases/transactions and trades are instant.

Jacob Mei: One of the most requested features that I have seen talked about on your forums is the reintroduction of savings accounts. Since you can’t do that what sort of alternative will you be offering those who request such things?

Ricdic: I’m sorry, I got carried away and answered that question above. The bonds and exchange system will be far more superior to the savings accounts and I believe will be a very large success with the public. Once the exchange is out, people won’t requesting savings accounts any more.

Jacob Mei: Ha-ha, no problem. In regards to the EBANK Stock Exchange though, as I understand it Eve allows player corporations to make and use stocks which give holders voting rights, allows corporations to pay dividends and so forth, will the Stock Exchange use this system or are you deploying your own?

Ricdic: We will be deploying our own, So a CEO can log into his ebank account and issue dividends.

Jacob Mei: Time and again, members of EBANK have stressed that it should not be taken as an investment but a step towards investment. What are some of the differences between EBANK and a typical investment opportunity in EVE?

Ricdic: Most investments come with fixed terms for maturity or penalties for early withdrawal. EBANKs accounts are identical to those of a bank in that you can withdraw the funds whenever you like. The main difference is that a withdrawal needs to be actioned by one of our Bank Tellers. Our current withdrawal average speed of service is 6 hours. With a RL bank you can use an ATM however CCP don’t allow non-user requested monetary transfers currently. If this were to change in some way to allow automated withdrawals we would jump onto it instantly.

EBANK is a service. We allow people to deposit in return for a fixed rate of return. A regular investment requires a specific amount of funding to achieve a specific goal. With EBANK we simply advise if you aren’t otherwise using your funds we are happy to hold them and provide you interest on your isk which won’t accrue in your personal wallet.

Jacob Mei: What are some of your goals for EBANK? Where do you see EBANK going in a few years?

Ricdic: My personal biggest goal is product exposure and brand awareness. I want people to hear of EBANK and know who it is regardless of whether or not they are customers. In terms of isk, as far as I am concerned those goals have been met. Having over 1 trillion isk deposited by people who trust in the EBANK enterprise is phenomenal. I would like to see the upcoming stock exchange revive the semi-stagnant secondary market and I would like to see the affiliates/merchant services upgrades completely restructure the way hundreds of people play Eve.

The merchant services is basically a paypal for Eve. A secured portal allowing you to purchase items, provide services, sell your items without even needing to log into Eve. To be able to go to someone’s online shop website while you are on holidays/work (without eve access) and purchase an item or service you want without needing the Eve client. To be able to deposit funds into your Texas Hold’em Poker account directly through EBANK. To be able to use EVE Bay for totally secured and seamless transactions. We expect the merchant services to open Eve right up to another plan of existence, in essence extending the current sand pit.

Jacob Mei: Can we expect to see EBANK at Fan Fest in November?

Ricdic: You will see an EBANK presence at the fanfest in November. Unfortunately I personally cannot attend as airfares from Australia to Iceland are horrendous however some of our staff will be there and may even have mystery surprises on hand.

Jacob Mei: Thank you for your time Ricdic, before we finish this up is there anything else you would like to add?

Ricdic: Simply that if anyone has any questions about EBANK feel free to view our site and frequently asked questions. Joining the EBANK channel ingame is also a good social network as our staff and a lot of customers reside there as well. Questions will be answered there or finally the contact us page on our website below provides alternate levels of contact where required.

http://www.eve-bank.net

I want to thank Eve-Mag for publishing this interview.

Tags: ebank, Fan Fest, ISK, Stock Exchange