Haven Bank VVIP

Haven Online's revenue model ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was simple: a monetization scheme, and exchange fees.

With no cash shop of the sort other online games relied on, it could look a little thin—but not one user actually playing Haven Online was fool enough to say so out loud. The money poured into class gacha alone was enough to drag a pay-to-win shitshow out of anyone's mouth.

Even so, neither of those two paid elements was the least bit mandatory. Unless you were playing in earnest, there was no need to spend money rewriting something that came down to luck, and if you played hard enough, the money you piled up in-game let you pay your way without touching a single real-world won. What made that possible was currency exchange. Real money into Haven money. Haven money back into real money.

Strictly speaking, you deposited real money into Windy Pay and exchanged that for Haven currency, then exchanged Haven currency into Windy Pay and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠finally into cash. Stretching it into three steps seemed unnecessary, but every step had its reason. Depositing real money into Windy Pay cost nothing. Exchanging Windy Pay for Haven money took a ten percent fee, and exchanging Haven money back into Windy Pay took another ten. Cashing Windy Pay out cost a 3.3 percent tax. The interests tangled through it were complicated, but in the end the one making the money was Windy.

Plenty of talk surrounded the system. The system, as ever, did not change—and plenty of people liked it exactly as it was.

The fees, of course, never made the black market vanish. There were still deals that handed over Haven money for real cash at about a five percent discount, but Windy didn't touch them. The risk belonged to the user. If something went wrong, the game company stayed out of it, and once you used a brokerage site the cut landed close to that same ten percent, so there wasn't much advantage anyway. Above all, Windy steered players toward the official exchange not with sanctions, but with benefits.

"Haven Bank plays a role a lot like a real bank. There are all kinds of deposit and savings products, and you can exchange currency too. Exchange is basically the main business, though. When you exchange, you earn mileage equal to one percent of the amount, and every six months your membership benefits scale with how much mileage you've built up."

"Oh. That's interesting."

"Right? Haven really is an amazing world. And Windy, making a world like this—she's pretty incredible too."

Sarang, true to her name, seemed to love Haven. You didn't have to be Lim Sarang for that. Open any community and people who had handed their whole lives over to Haven were everywhere. I myself was already spending more than half of ordinary life in there.

"First open an account, then you can exchange."

"How much should I do?"

"Hmm. How much can you do?"

Opening an account wasn't hard. Ask the employee—an AI, called an NPC here in Haven—and they simply checked your account information and set it up. The surprising part was that an account made in Haven linked straight to Windy Pay and was easy to use. What mattered was the exchange. How much should I convert?

On any other day I would have mashed zeros until I felt like stopping, but I couldn't do that now. I was getting Lim Sarang's consulting, so I ought to follow her lead. She, too, didn't brush it off with something like however much you can and actually ran the numbers.

"The truth is, the more Haven money you have, the better. If you're logged in all day, money leaves your hands constantly. Earning it and then spending it is best, but you aren't ready to earn yet, Siwoo, so if you think of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it as seed money to get settled..."

She hesitated, then named a minimum.

"Low-level gear runs about four hundred million, and expanding your skill slots and learning the skills is around fifty million, so exchanging five hundred million or more should be enough, but..."

Even as she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠said it, she stole a glance at me. Probably wondering whether it was even possible. There is a difference between a user who dropped ten billion on a game of his own free will and someone else telling you how much to spend. Everyone has a limit.

I nodded with a solemn face.

"If it's five hundred million or more, does that qualify for membership too?"

Five hundred million meant five million mileage. I wondered if that was a little low, but Sarang nodded.

"Yes. Reach one million mileage within a six-month period and you can receive VIP benefits. One hundred million is VVIP, but that..."

"I'll go exchange and be right back."

The moment I said I wanted to exchange, a hologram displayed the current rate.

"Ah. It's not one-to-one."

No matter how much Haven Online was a transcendent game the whole world played—another world entirely—it made no sense for its money to be worth exactly the same as real money. If it were, there would be no reason to live a real life at all. You'd just bring everything you earned in reality into Haven and multiply it. I figured there were probably people who actually made a living off that kind of spread. I'd heard stories like that even back in the online-game days.

"What? So if I exchange one hundred million, they hand me three hundred million?"

More precisely, after the ten percent fee, about two hundred eighty million. Pretty decent.

"Hmm. Maybe I'll just do one billion."

If the minimum I needed was five hundred million, then about three hundred million in cash would be plenty. And she'd said the VIP line was one hundred million. Then again, I wasn't sure I needed to hold myself to that.

"What did you say the VVIP threshold was?"

I asked an NPC, and they answered kindly.

"One hundred million mileage on a six-month basis. It accrues at one percent of the amount spent through Windy Pay, so we'd appreciate it if you kept that in mind."

"Then please exchange ten billion."

"Could you wait just a moment?"

A flicker of panic slipped into the bank employee's expression. An NPC, and still capable of a face that fine. Windy's AI, I supposed. Then another employee arrived.

"I'll show you this way for a moment."

"Yes?"

They led me from the teller window into an elegant room, and the branch manager was waiting there.

"Hello, Mr. Kim Siwoo. I'm Oh Changsik, manager of Haven Bank's Seoul main branch."

"Ah. Yes. Why..."

"I personally attend to our VVIP clients."

"I haven't spent it yet."

"The amount you're exchanging is rather large, so it takes a little time. We brought you here so you wouldn't be inconvenienced."

"I see."

He was courteous, and he walked me through the VVIP service in detail. The benefits really did seem richer than anything in reality. Haven Bank was a bank connected across the entire world of Haven Online, and its influence matched that reach. Within the setting, Haven Bank was the only Tier-1 financial institution in Haven Online. Everything else was private finance that didn't even qualify as second-tier. Because of that, a single Haven VVIP card meant discounts almost everywhere as a baseline, plus reward points and all sorts of other perks.

"Nice."

One of the things users ranked highest was the sales fee—the Haven tax. In a world built on monster invasions, selling the monsters, materials, and everything else that came out of dungeons meant paying tax to the government, and of course a fee on top of that. It was bad enough to make people swear, and membership cut it nearly in half. VVIP knocked it down by as much as seventy percent. Not exactly a vital point for me. Still, who hates being handed a benefit?

"The exchange is ready, but because the volume is so large, the rate falls to an average of 2.89. Will that be all right?"

"Yeah. I don't really care."

It was fascinating—the greatest advantage of the exchange system, and something possible only because Haven was another world. Haven itself did not mint Haven money and sell it to users. Every bit of real money and Haven money used in an exchange came from the users using the exchange. The fees collected along the way might be spent by Haven Bank, but that money, too, had come out of users' wallets. So the rate was fluid, the way exchange rates between the world's currencies shifted every day.

"There really must be a lot of people living off underground swaps and arbitrage."

Just by my using ten billion, the rate had fallen from 3.1 to 2.89. It hadn't fallen much. A full ten billion in cash—nearly thirty-one billion in Haven money—and the exchange was holding enough to pay it out on the spot. I was eating about two billion in losses, but I decided the fact that I could take it immediately was worth more.

"Give it to me right now."

"The deposit has gone through. Since you've opened an account, you may check the money anytime in your status window."

I opened the status window, and Account had been added.

"Thank you for becoming a Haven Bank VVIP."

I received treatment at Haven Bank that I had never once gotten from a bank in the real world.