It turned out that these investment institutions seemed overly worried, because this bank had actually applied very early, but it had not attracted much attention until now. By the time everyone noticed, the bank had already been officially approved and established for over three months.
However, during these three months, besides constructing a bank headquarters on the third floor of the Western Mustang Fund's office building, Western Mustang Bank had not established any other branches in any other areas.
This was an almost unbelievable situation for the development of a commercial bank. What kind of commercial bank could it be without even a single offline branch?
However, this also left these institutions very puzzled, unable to comprehend what Western Mustang intended to do. It wasn't until Western Mustang Bank released an official announcement that its intentions became clear.
In this announcement, Western Mustang Bank clearly informed everyone that it would not have any offline branches for offline deposits or withdrawals or any offline financial services. All banking operations would be conducted online.
Currently, Western Mustang Bank is investing in the construction of what will be the largest online banking hall in the history of the world, also becoming the first bank in the world to operate entirely on the internet.
Users can open an online account directly on the internet by providing their personal social security number, other personal information, and network authorization documents.
Of course, for security reasons, when applying for an online banking account, users must select a computer with a camera. They will then need to record a video directly using this camera, stating their social security number, name, home address, and other personal information. This will be considered completed security verification.
If users are unable to perform the above operations, they can directly visit Atari mobile communication service halls located in various regions. Western Mustang Fund will install an automatic online account opening machine in each service hall, along with a guide to assist users in creating and opening their Western Mustang online bank accounts.
Once an online bank account is opened, users can freely transfer funds and settle transactions with other banks that have online banking functions. Funds within the online bank can also be used for consumption with any cooperating online merchants.
The first batch of cooperating online merchants includes oo Game Center, oo Blind Box, Atari Mobile Communications, Weibo, and other products from the Jiangnan Gift Pack.
In summary, this is a new era of online banking, entirely reliant on and utilized through the internet.
The reaction from industry professionals and customers to such an announcement was uniform: they felt Western Mustang Bank was making a mountain out of a molehill and simply had too much time on their hands.
Wasn't it just an issue of online funding needs? The business volume was at most around one billion US dollars per year. Was it necessary to establish a full-fledged online commercial bank just for this business?
Similarly, the annual maintenance costs for such a bank exceeded 50 million US dollars. This was definitely overthinking things and creating unnecessary trouble.
However, one couldn't entirely blame these banks and users for being short-sighted. After all, in 2005, not many people in the world dared to deposit their hard-earned money in a private online bank.
Moreover, with hacking technology being so rampant at the time, what if some super-hacker infiltrated the online bank's servers and stole their funds?
Indeed, online banking was a very niche business back then. Although almost all major commercial banks in the United States offered online banking services, the combined annual transaction volume of these services was less than 50 billion US dollars. Compared to the hundreds of trillions of US dollars in transactions through normal channels, it was a minuscule amount. Therefore, spending money to establish an online bank was undoubtedly a sign of poor judgment.
However, Little Swift did not care about these opinions and continued to resolutely push forward with his policies. On August 22, 2005, more than 15 days after the settlement of the third phase of the fund, countless former users of Western Mustang Fund finally saw information related to the eagerly awaited fourth phase of the fund.
Before that, something remarkable needs to be mentioned. Although the third phase of the fund had been settled 15 days prior, and users could claim their profits, the funds actually claimed amounted to less than 10% of the total. This meant that out of the more than 50 billion US dollars, over 45 billion US dollars still remained in Western Mustang Fund's capital pool, untouched.
This was a lesson learned by everyone from the experience of the third phase. When the second phase of the fund was settled the previous year, many people chose to withdraw their profits from the second phase.
However, when the third phase of the fund began to be sold, many users were surprised to find that those who had not withdrawn their funds from the second phase had the opportunity to directly convert their undistributed funds into units of the third phase fund.
As for those who had already withdrawn their funds and wished to purchase the third phase fund again, they had to participate in a lottery subscription to try their luck.
As a result, over 150 billion US dollars were subscribed for a fund of only 10 billion US dollars, leading to a meager lottery winning rate of only one in fifteen.
And those who had withdrawn their funds but did not win the lottery could only watch enviously as the lucky recipients of the third phase continued to earn substantial profits of over 50% and saw their dollars multiply, helplessly waiting for the fourth phase of the fund with tears in their eyes.
Therefore, users from the third phase had all learned their lesson and expressed their intention to leave the funds untouched, waiting for Western Mustang Fund to automatically use these funds to purchase the fourth phase of the fund.
Of course, these were just the users' wishes. If Western Mustang Fund decided to withdraw completely and re-draw, they would be truly distraught.
This time, Western Mustang Fund did not intend to cause any trouble. As soon as everyone saw the sales announcement for the fourth phase of Western Mustang Fund, they noticed that the first sentence of the announcement stated that unclaimed funds from the third phase would be automatically transferred to the fund pool for the fourth phase. This single sentence instantly reassured all users, who felt their money would continue to grow next year.
However, the second sentence that followed left users somewhat confused. This second sentence stated that all users who purchased Western Mustang Fund would have their fund accounts automatically opened with Western Mustang Bank and linked to their Western Mustang Fund accounts, becoming exclusive online circulation accounts for Western Mustang Fund.
Of course, if someone did not wish to open a Western Mustang Bank account, they could apply to cancel the activation by phone or online within three days.
However, if that were the case, the original Western Mustang Fund account would be automatically canceled. If there were any funds remaining in the account, they would be automatically returned to the original bank account through the same transfer route, with gratitude for your support of Western Mustang Fund.
The content of this statement directly informed users that if they wished to continue purchasing Western Mustang Fund, they would have to open a Western Mustang Bank account. Those who were unwilling to do so would no longer be able to participate, and they would part ways.
Although many people were dissatisfied with being forced to open an online bank account, the thought of losing the opportunity to continue purchasing Western Mustang Fund quickly dispelled their objections.
In fact, within the three days, only fewer than 100 accounts truly called to request account cancellation, which was an extremely small number.
The most crucial part of the entire announcement followed, which completely outlined the online sales strategy and changes for the fourth phase of the fund. Accompanying this was a 142-page appendix, a supplementary contract that detailed various situations, handling methods, and solutions to be faced during the fourth phase of online fund sales.
Of course, the vast majority of users would not be interested in reading these specific rules. They only saw that starting from the fourth phase of the fund, they had the right to buy and exit the fund at any time, and all of this could be accomplished with just a computer and an internet connection, which brightened their eyes.
This change was simply fantastic!
Apart from some experts who were vociferously criticizing on various media platforms, almost no users expressed any objections after seeing this new sales agreement, as this sales agreement did not cause any harm compared to the previous one; on the contrary, it seemed to grant more rights.
Firstly, if you were the type of user who preferred to maintain the status quo and receive income once a year, this change would be meaningless to you. You simply needed to purchase the fund at the earliest opportunity and wait a year before withdrawing your funds, which was no different from before.
But for those who considered themselves stock trading experts, business prodigies, or individuals with the "I can do it too" mentality, this was a truly wonderful change.
They now had the opportunity to earn a significant amount of money through their own efforts. For example, many people had been criticizing Little Swift's operating strategy throughout 2005 as flawed.
He should not have maintained such a conservative strategy of holding oil futures without trading, but instead should have seized market movements, selling decisively when crude oil prices rose and buying decisively when they fell.
They also advised against overly frequent operations. Throughout 2005, crude oil prices experienced six significant fluctuations, with an average fluctuation of around 7 dollars per rise or fall. If these fluctuations had been capitalized upon, Western Mustang Fund could have earned an additional profit of over 40 billion US dollars each time.
As a result, Little Swift was so foolish as to hold on without trading. When they saw this, they couldn't resist trading themselves!
Now, they finally had their chance!