Currency and Banking

Nearly every nation uses different forms of currency. Risur uses the same form of currency that is identified in the Player's Handbook, with one exception. Gold coins are out of style and paper gold notes are more common. While there are plenty of copper and silver pieces to be found, electrum is fairly rare and platinum pieces are almost unheard of. Platinum coins are quite rare. In fact, most establishments—taverns, bathhouses, bakeries, and so on—balk at accepting them. A simple street vendor selling apples might never have even seen one in her life. Silver is still the standard among the common classes.
No one actually carries around sacks of thousands of gold coins in Flint. It's not only inconvenient, it's dangerous. Instead, due to the rise in printing industries, gold pieces are small bills of paper called gold notes. They are the size of a dollar bill and are very popular with merchants, mercenaries, clergy, and the government. Their negligible weight and size allows millions of gold piece values to be transported with great ease. These notes are legal tender in Risur and elsewhere in the world. One gold note = one gold piece.
However, it is more likely that businessmen, merchants, industrialists, the government, and others with large sums of cash available to them, simply cannot keep that much on them at one time or even keep large sums in their own homes. Even with the development of the gold note, wealthy business owners still felt uncomfortable carrying that much wealth around with them. With the advancements of banking, check writing and notes of credit has become popular. Individuals can now deposit gold notes, platinum pieces and even gems and jewelry in a bank and write a check, printed by their banking institution, to pay for goods and services. Receivers of checks can then go to their own banks and have the money transferred to their account.
The other nations of the world all accept Risuri gold notes and vice versa. Though there are some minor variations in exchange rates between nations, they are minor and hand waved for the campaign. Assume one gold note = a gold piece in all of the nations. However, players are reminded that each nation has its own form of currency, though they are all based on the copper - silver - electrum - gold - platinum standard from the Player's Handbook.