The Confederate Minting Cooperative
Each of the 23 Emirates of the Confederation has a mint, an institution for creating new Confederation Dinar for the Emirate, as well as for controlling the supply of existing dinar. While the Emirates are each independent, and the treaties between the 23 often do not have enforcement provisions and leave specifics up to the emirates, the agreements establishing the uniform weights, values, and production quotas for the dinar coins of the emirates are exacting and strict. The emirates recognize the incentives that exist for any single member to manipulate the currency, and the damage such an act could do not just to the other emirates, but also the standing of Runberi merchants around the world.
The Confederate Minting Cooperative was founded in 286 to deal with many of these issues. A unique, transnational guild, the Cooperative has established itself as the association of all minters in Runber. Thus, masters of the mint in the emirates are not only loyal to the assembly that has hired them on. Indeed, as the emirates are expected to find their coinmakers by sending a request the cooperative who will then recommend them someone to bring in to run the mint, these minters are usually a step apart from the rest of the civil service in any given emirate. The assemblies and the emirs know that it is difficult and dangerous to get a Cooperative-certified mintmaster to break the currency treaties of the union, or indeed do anything untoward with the currency in general. More likely to alert the cooperative to the attempted malfeasance of the emir rather than carry out their orders, this system has proven effective at ensuring that each emirate follows the currency treaties of the confederation to the letter.
Part of the charter of the cooperative is that minters do not keep secrets from eachother. Any member of the cooperative can visit and inspect any mint at any time. As every member knows every other member, this is easy enough to arrange.
Structure
The Confederate Minting Cooperative is a lateral organization, organized as a council and exclusive club of mintmasters. Composed of current and former masters of mint in the emirates, membership in the cooperative rarely numbers over 50. Occasionally, existing members will introduce apprentices to the cooperative to be recommended as mintmasters in the future.
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