The Iron Bank

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The Iron Bank’s Origins

Braavos is also home to one of the most powerful banks in the world, whose roots stretch back to the beginnings of the city, when a few of the fugitives took to hiding their valuables in an abandoned iron mine to keep them safe from thieves and pirates.

As the city grew and prospered, the shafts and chambers of the mine began to fill.

Rather than let their treasure sit idle in the earth, the wealthier Braavosi began to make loans to their less fortunate brethren.

^ Funny how a primitive strategy such as “hide your valuables and lock them away from your enemies” evolves into complex economic systems of debt and currency based on the relative value of goods and markets.

Love this process of social evolution from the simple to the complicated, even though the merits of a simple economy of trade and barter can be argued for against having a monetary system based on debt inflation and abstract backings of wealth symbolized by “coin”.

There are pros and cons to everything in this world where the concept of time itself creates a “time-value” component to all economic and labor concerns.

• Kings, princes, archons, triarchs, and merchants beyond count travel from the ends of the earth to seek loans from the heavily guarded vaults of the Iron Bank.

^ No greater power in the world than owning debt against somebody — based off the perceived wealth of the global economy, Braavos is in position to pull strings in every nation and economy based on how they see fit.

• Those who borrow from the Braavosi and fail to repay their debts oft have cause to rue such folly, for the Bank has been known to topple lords and princes and has also been rumored to send assassins against those it cannot remove (though this has never been conclusively proved).

^ To be fair, this only happens when someone refuses to pay back an egregious debt— it’s not like the Iron Bank itself is dictating politics and influencing what lord or king or merchant has power and where.

I think people attribute too many sinister motives to the Iron Bank — but like I said, I think even the Iron Bank still holds true to the founding principles of Braavos, even if they stopped being slavery vigilantes — and while it does keep tabs on the world, it doesn’t play God.

If someone wants to borrow money, they allow it — it is up to the borrower to use that in a wise or stupid fashion — it’s not like the Bank was secretly plotting for Cersei to get into immense debt — she did it all on her own, just like Stannis uses his loan wisely.

I also don’t think the Iron Bank “owns” the Faceless Men — again, it’s all one system based on the founding principles — and the Faceless Men, IMO,would treat the Iron Bank’s request for an assassination the same they would treat anyone else’s.

This notion that the Iron Bank uses the Faceless Men to perform assassinations all over the world to rule countries from the shadows is pretty stupid — it would undermine everything the IB and FM stand for.

People automatically assume any bank is “evil” but again, no one forces someone to take out a loan. And if you have a grand business idea, or are a government in need of finances, it can be a great launching point.

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Current Structure of The Iron Bank

Archmaester Matthar’s The Origins of the Iron Bank and Braavos provides one of the more detailed accounts of the bank’s history and dealings, so far as they can be discovered; the bank is famous for its discretion and its secrecy.

Matthar recounts that the founders of the Iron Bank numbered three-and-twenty; sixteen men and seven women, each of whom possessed a key to the bank’s great subterranean vaults.

Their descendants, whose numbers now exceed one thousand, are known askeyholders to this day, though the keys they display proudly on formal occasions are now entirely ceremonial.

Certain of the founding families of Braavos have declined over the centuries, and a few have lost their wealth entirely, yet even the meanest still cling to their keys and the honors that go with them.

^ The Ego hates losing its identity— it will cling desperately.

Pretty cool origins — keyholding group to the sub-vaults of immense wealth — and included seven women to boot, not just men.

Unlike our world, where one family usually starts a bank and it stays controlled by them for hundreds of years 😉

The Iron Bank is not ruled by the keyholders alone, however.

Some of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Braavos today are of more recent vintage, and the heads of these houses own shares in the bank, sit on its secret councils, and have a voice in selecting the men who lead it.

^ I like this structure a lot — it’s not about prestige, but a fair market — if you become rich, you can buy shares of the bank itself and decide on how it lends out coin and makes decisions, so you get a good return on your investment — like any stock market, really.

The “secret councils” are probably not nefarious but discuss important events around the world — what to do about Dany, to support the Wall or not, are White Walkers real?, what to do about Cersei — that sort of thing.

And the wealthiest people, the share holders of the bank, are not the people who run it on a daily basis — much like in today’s world how an organization has traders and managers with the Fat Cats sitting on top not doing much work at all.

For example the “men who lead it” are selected, not given positions — like the poor bloke who had to meet Stannis in the freezing cold forests of Deepwood Motte to speak for the Iron Bank itself.

In Braavos, as many an outsider has observed, golden coins count for more than iron keys.

The bank’s envoys cross the world, oft upon the bank’s own ships, and merchants, lords, and even kings treat with them almost as equals.

^ No one wants to piss off the envoys — that is why that one envoyin ASOIAF could stroll though the Night’s Watch and the Gift and prance around the North without worrying about his own safety — it’s like some protective aura just hovers around the envoys, knowing that person represents the organization which runs the world.