Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

29th September 1659

Akhand Bharatiya Empire, Imperial Capital Bengaluru, Simhasana Bhavana

The sudden disappearance of His Majesty Vijay was unknown to almost everyone in the empire. Even some of the ministers did not know that His Majesty had gone to visit a secret research facility under the Bharatiya Academy of Military Sciences. But since he came back within a day, there wasn't anyone curious about the matter.

Vijay, sitting in his office, rang the bell on his desk.

Soon, Ganesh entered the room

"Ganesh, invite Bhaskaracharya to the palace," Vijay ordered.

Ganesh promptly nodded his head and left.

In front of him was the plan he had prepared for the founding of an insurance company. In fact, the Raya Insurance Firm had been established right alongside the Mangaluru Stock Exchange, but since he did not want to overwhelm the Finance Department and the Reserve Bank of Bharat, he had stopped his progress right at registering the company name.

Now the Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of Bharat have become much freer since the groundwork for the opening of the Mangaluru Stock Exchange has already been completed. They have settled down. This is the right time to bring up the matter.

---

Bhaskaracharya, who was dealing with some financial affairs related to the Raya Bank, immediately dropped his work and set off to the Royal Palace as soon as he received a message from the Arka Drishti communication channel.

"Your Majesty!" he said respectfully as he did a namaskara and a small bow in front of Vijay.

Vijay nodded his head and gestured for him to sit down.

He folded his hands and looked at his asset manager. "Bhaskar, the Raya Insurance Firm that I established could now be put to work. Do you have any suggestions for its director?" he asked.

Bhaskaracharya fell into deep thought. "Your Majesty, before I suggest someone, can I please know what this insurance firm does?" He looked a little apologetic. "I am sorry, I wanted to bring up this matter earlier when the company was established, but since the stock exchange was also being planned at the same time, I couldn't bring up the matter. "

Vijay smiled and shook his head. "The concept is simple. The insurance firm takes a certain amount of money, let's say 5 Varaha, from its customer and when the customer encounters something horrifying, like a life-threatening disease, a horrifying accident, or worse, death, then the insurance firm will give him or his family a lump sum of money at once, whether for his treatment or as compensation."

Vijay passed over the business plan he had made. "I have currently divided a few financial products for the company."

"One is life insurance, costing only a few Varaha per month."

"Two is health insurance, costing 7 to 10 Varaha per month."

"Three is long-term disability insurance, costing 7 to 10 Varaha per month."

Bhaskaracharya nodded his head one by one. However, he was confused. "Your Majesty, how can this be profitable? Taking only a few Varaha, and giving away thousands—isn't it a loss?" he asked with an incomprehensible expression on his face.

Vijay smiled. "Bhaskar, let me ask you this: in a company, if 100 people buy life insurance, how much will the firm make per month, and how much per year?"

Bhaskaracharya did some calculations in his mind. "Five Varaha per person makes it 500 Varaha per month and 6000 Varaha per year."

"Now think about how many among the 100 people are going to die due to accidents or some human-related causes?"

Bhaskaracharya thought about these statistics in many companies he was overseeing. "Barely one or two, Your Majesty, and that too in industrial companies, where accidents are prone to occur even after taking many safety precautions."

Vijay spread out his arms. "There you go. Even if the compensation is 1500 Varaha per person, it is only 3000 Varaha. Considering the income of the company for the whole year, the company has still made a profit of 3000 Varaha, making a profit margin of 50%."

"Isn't this profitable enough? How is this a loss?" Vijay asked.

Bhaskaracharya took in a breath of fresh air. He felt like he had been woken up, and his mind began to turn. 'This is only for 100 people; what about 1000 or 10,000?' He got excited. "Your Majesty, insurance could be provided for other things as well, isn't it?"

Vijay nodded, very satisfied that Bhaskaracharya was able to think of further income streams for the insurance policy. "It could be provided for anything that has a remote chance of damage and at the same time is cared for dearly by the customer. For example, be it a carriage, we can insure the carriage and pay the money if it has encountered an accident."

Thinking about the insurance scams in his last life, he added, "If the customer could prove it is an accident, of course." He stopped briefly. "And we can even insure the machine tools used by various factories and other things. But for now, life, health, and long-term disability insurance should be enough."

Bhaskaracharya thought for a while and agreed. Even though he felt like the prospects in the insurance business were huge, he still wanted to see practical results before he could come to a conclusion. "Yes, Your Majesty, you're right."

"So, do you have a recommendation?" Vijay asked.

Bhaskaracharya fell into thought, and suddenly a person's face came to his mind. "Your Majesty, remember the cousin of the Minister of Finance?"

Your next chapter is on empire

Vijay's brows furrowed. "You mean Badrinath Mohan?"

Bhaskaracharya nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty, and unlike his cousin, instead of taking the route of the government, he took the corporate route and has currently been tasked with opening a new branch of the bank. I feel like he is a very good candidate to head the insurance firm."

Vijay tried to see if he could remember the work history of Badrinath Mohan, but sadly he couldn't. But he knew that the people who were tasked with opening a branch of the Raya Bank were all capable, so he was not worried about the hard power requirements for the job, as for the soft power, which could only be seen after some trials. "All right, I'll take your word for it," he pointed at the document. "Polish out the business plan and hand it over to Badrinath."

"Let's temporarily make him the director for a year. After looking at his work, we can talk about other things," he said.

Gangadhar nodded in acceptance. "As you wish, Your Majesty. Please summon me if there is anything else." He did a namaskara respectfully and left.

Right after Bhaskaracharya had left, Vijay called over Ganesh once again.

"Summon Minister of Finance; Jagannath Mohan, Director of the Reserve Bank of Bharat; Dharmendra; and the Prime Minister Vinod."

---

While it took a while for the ministers to arrive, Vijay excitedly took out the second volume of *Bahubali*, which Kavya had just completed and had given it to him to proofread.

Sadly, the ministers did not take long to arrive, and Vijay only completed reading up to the 15th chapter.

After all the pleasantries, Vijay looked at them directly. "I need all three of you to work together and draft a bill."

The ministers suddenly became alert.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Vijay pushed forward a document. Everyone's eyes were focused on it. "This bill states that a commercial bank, an investment bank, and an insurance firm should not be under the same ownership and should be separated." What he was talking about was naturally the Glass-Steagall Bill that was enacted in the United States in 1933 after the Great Depression. In that year in America, the severe economic downturn and widespread bank failures caused an unprecedented loss of confidence in the American banking system, making the economic collapse even worse.

In fact, the reason for the Great Depression was partly because of bankers embezzling public funds to make high-risk private investments, which led to the banks being unable to make capital turnover and eventually caused the breakage of the capital chains. When this news spread, it caused unanimous bank runs in multiple banks in America.

Although such a situation is very far from the Bharatiya Empire, which has yet to undergo the first industrial revolution, Vijay is still taking precautions since he cannot predict how his existence might affect changes in the timeline.

Hearing the order, eyebrows were immediately raised as the command of His Majesty was unexpected. They looked at each other, not understanding what to do. Finally, Jagannath Mohan came forward. "Are you sure, Your Majesty? Currently, commercial operations and investments are done at the same bank. Once this bill is passed, either the investment department or the commercial department will have to be closed or completely branched off and sold to someone else." His face was filled with doubt. "Can I ask why?" In fact, he also wanted to mention that His Majesty's bank also held both commercial and investment businesses, but thankfully he stopped himself from mentioning it. Although he knew that His Majesty was quite amiable and a principled person who stuck to the rules, he did not want to use his fragile body to test it out.

Vijay knew that he had some convincing to do, but he didn't answer the question directly. "Let me tell you a simple principle," he began.

"The money being made from a commercial bank comes from holding the money from the people and lending it out as a loan for a certain interest. Now, this is stable profits and a stable business model. But once a commercial bank sees that investment is more profitable, it will inevitably direct its resources to investments."

"Currently, we are not seeing this problem since our empire is in an economic boom, and all projects are bringing in profits. But what happens when this economic expansion slows down or even stops?"

"Can these bankers who have tasted the benefits of investment stop?" He stared at the ministers.

Not to mention Jagannath Mohan, even Dharmendra and Vinod shook their heads.

"So now, what will happen if these bankers continue to use people's money in investments?

"A great embezzlement of public funds for private use will take place. The public will no longer trust the banking system, and an economic crisis will follow.

"Currently, we only have five banks, so we do not have this problem. But what about in the future? Can it remain the same?"

Jagannath Mohan fell into deep thought. Although he felt like His Majesty was exaggerating a bit, he still understood the reason why His Majesty brought out this bill. "It can be implemented, Your Majesty, but..." He couldn't finish his sentence as he did not know how to bring it up. He knew that after things had reached this point, the matter could no longer be avoided, but still, he needed some support. He looked towards the Prime Minister for help.

Vinod immediately understood the difficulty of the finance minister, so he decided to take the lead. "Your Majesty, you just mentioned that commercial, investment, and insurance firms will not be allowed to be under the same owner. But doesn't the Royal Bank currently have both commercial and investment projects? And the royal family also established the Raya Insurance Firm. How should we handle this?" he asked.

Vijay shrugged, not taking any offense, which made Jagannath Mohan let out a sigh of relief. As for Vinod, he had expected something similar to begin with, so he was not too surprised. "The Raya Royal Bank will immediately split its investment department and auction it off. As for the investment firm, it will still be under the assets of the royal family, but it will be a wholly owned company. So, make a provision in the bill where either a commercial bank and insurance firm or an investment bank and insurance firm can coexist together in the case that both assets are wholly owned by a private individual."

Vijay was naturally making the bill according to his own convenience, but he did not do anything that was too outrageous. In his last life, insurance products were sold in both commercial banks and investment banks in Bharat; there had not been any separation. The whole reason he made it separate was to avoid the popular insurance scams that had taken place in his past life.

Hopefully, the whole situation would change in this life, since the vast majority of the insurance firms would be separate entities, not only because they would have to be established by a large corporation that had nothing to do with established interests in the financial sector but also because they would need to come up with a large sum of—he suddenly remembered he hadn't mentioned the deposit required to establish the new banks.

"Right, to establish an investment bank, the deposit is 500 kilograms of gold, and the same goes for the insurance firm."

Thinking of something, he added, "The investment bank that will be separated from the Raya Royal Bank—its deposit will be paid by the new owner. And for the establishment of the Raya Insurance Firm, the royal family will pay for it."

Confirming that he had not missed anything else, he nodded his head in satisfaction.