The Angsty Assets
(Related brief: The future of money)
During the credit crunch of 2007, banks were facing the loss of a great deal of trust–both the trust of other banks but also that of their private customers. Those small-scale clients, in many cases probably for the first time, realized that they do not only deposit their money with their bank, but that they are actually investing it in the global economy. They thus subject it to the complex movement of the markets as well as to inherent systemic risks. In the face of this shock of recognition, Northern Rock’s customers withdrew two billion British pounds in just a few days, leaving the bank in a precarious financial situation.
In order to regain the trust of customers, this project proposes a kind of asset which alludes to bonds and stocks of the past which through illustration and text gave their owners a rich idea of what they were related to. In a similar fashion, this asset shows its current monetary value and related news on itself, using e-ink technology to create a dynamic document. More important, however, is that it plugs into a proprietary wall-socket provided by the bank to connect itself to the global economy. However, the customer decides how deeply the plug fits into the socket , thus determining how risk-averse he or she wants to deal with the market. Should there be a major rupture in the financial system, the more cautiously plugged-in assets will physically disconnect from the socket and be retracted from the market. The document goes blank with nothing but the name of the owner and its current value remaining, effectively becoming a cheque that can be cashed in or re-connected if so desired.
While this design acknowledges that it is impossible to fully disconnect from the economy because the overall systemic risk always remains, it aims at the same time re-gain customer trust by providing them with a sense of domestic control over their assets–which at the same time are in fact roaming across the globe.