Be the Brains Behind the Bank!

“BE THE BRAINS BEHIND THE BANK”

A fast-paced strategy card game about building, scaling, and surviving as a digital bank
Players: 2–5
Time: 20–40 minutes
Skills tested: Strategy, risk management, timing, negotiation

THE GAME
Objective
Be the first player to build a profitable, compliant digital bank worth 1 billion Dollars—or—
Have the highest Dollar valuation when the deck runs out.

Core Concepts (Banking but Fun)
Players race to build:
Core systems
Products
Customers
Revenue

…while avoiding:
Regulatory fines
Outages
Fraud
Bad tech decisions

HOW TO PLAY

SETUP

Keep track of Bank Valuations using a paper and pen or individual calculators
Shuffle all cards into one deck
Deal 5 cards to each player
Place the deck face down in the center
Oldest banker goes first 😉

TURN STRUCTURE
On your turn, do all of the following in order:
1 Draw 1 card
2 Play up to 2 cards (any type)
3 Resolve effects immediately
4 Discard down to 7 cards max

Mitigation cards may be played at any time, even on another player’s turn

CARD TYPES

Foundation – Core infrastructure (green)
Product – Banking services (blue)
Customer – Who you serve (yellow)
Revenue – How you earn (gold)
Risk & Event – Disruption (red)
Mitigation – Protection & strategy (grey)

FOUNDATIONS

Foundations represent shared banking platforms
A single Foundation may support multiple Products
Foundations cannot be shared between players

Outages
Core Outage disables one Foundation for one round
All Products and Revenue on it become inactive
Automatically recover at the start of the owner’s next turn
Cloud Resilience cancels a Core Outage

PRODUCTS

Products generate Dollars
Some Products require specific Foundations
If a Product is inactive, it generates no Dollars

CUSTOMERS

Customers require KYC & Onboarding to have been played first
If a Customer is played without KYC in error, discard the Customer and skip the player’s next action
Customers generate Dollars only while supported by active Products

Gig Economy Users
First affected by Fraud Incidents

Corporate Clients
Regulatory Audits affect them twice unless compliant

REVENUE

Revenue cards require specific Products
Max 3 active Revenue cards unless you have Compliance Framework
If the required Product is inactive, the Revenue is also inactive

RISK & EVENTS

Resolve Risks immediately when played
Risks resolve in the order played
Regulatory Audits
Always target the leading bank (highest Dollars)
If tied, all leaders are audited
Compliance Framework blocks Audits

MITIGATION

Mitigation cards block or reduce Risks
Open Banking Partnerships allow you to use another player’s capability
(Foundations are never shared)
If a partnered capability goes down, dependent Products are inactive

FOUNDATION REPLACEMENT

On your turn, you may discard a Foundation and play a new one
All Products transfer to the new Foundation
Cannot replace a Foundation that is currently disabled by an outage

WINNING THE GAME

First player to reach 1 billion Dollars wins instantly

If multiple players reach 1 billion in the same round, highest total Customers wins

STRATEGY TIP
Fast growth wins games — unless you ignore risk.
Real banks fail for the same reason.

FAQs

How much do I need to know about banking to enjoy this game?
Familiarity with terms and products may help, but after a couple of games almost anyone can understand how to play and win.

Are there any modifications to make the game quicker?
Yes, you can reduce the valuation figure needed to win. You could also hand out a core banking system to each player at the beginning so everyone has a chance to get started.

Should my cards be hidden or available for others to see?
That’s part of your strategy. Some banks have press releases about upcoming products, whereas some work in stealth mode.

What if I need a specific card that I can’t get hold of?
You can try trading if you know someone has the card you want and needs a card you have. However, if all copies of the card have gone into the discard pile then it’s gone for this game

I’m struggling to keep track of my valuation, what should I do?
You can appoint a governing body to keep track of valuations. Keep all cards that affect your valuation (positively or negatively) face up and laid out in front of you. If there’s a card that affects multiple players (like Regulatory Audit) keep it face up in the centre. This way you can always re-calculate valuations if someone gets over ambitious and needs a write-down.

What does “discard down to 7 max” mean?
This means that at the end of each turn, no player should be holding more than 7 unplayed cards. They must either play the cards or discard them until they have a maximum of 7 cards.

Can a player discard cards to make sure another player doesn’t get them?
Yes. For example if you can see a player has “Lending Interest” revenue card and you have “Lending Products” which they need in order to implement and profit, you can decide to discard the card if you feel you would prefer not to use or trade it.

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