Idle Bank Tycoon: Money Empire Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Become a Banking Tycoon

Owning and managing a bank doesn’t really sound like something most people aspire to accomplish, but it’s a nice thought, isn’t it? You get to own a big building with lots of lights and even more money at your disposal.

Well, okay, banks don’t really work that way unless your end goal is to get locked up in jail for stealing—but that’s beside the point.

The point is that owning your own bank seems to sound like an amazing venture, but it’s not like you can just go and put one up as if it’s a lemonade stand. Even without much knowledge of how financial institutions work, you can just imagine all the requirements you need to comply with.

After all, you’re tasked to keep a lot of people’s money in a safe place. Like any other business, you need to hire competent staff, not to mention trustworthy ones since dealing with other people’s wealth and savings is no small feat. You also need ample space to keep actual, physical money, as well as a top-notch security system to ward off the wily Lupins of the world. Dealing with all that in real life can sound like a major headache for just one person—and that’s why games like Idle Bank Tycoon: Money Empire exist.

If you’re curious about what it’s like to own a bank and earn tons of profits without the accompanying headache of actually managing one, then Idle Bank Tycoon is the game for you. Here, you get to instantly own a bank, which you need to improve so you can earn as much money as your vaults can keep.

As an idle management game, Idle Bank Tycoon lets you upgrade your facilities, hire managers, enhance your bank’s reputation, and entice clients to place their trust and hard-earned cash in your establishment—all at the push of a button.

As a beginner, you start with a small bank in a small town. You’re guided through the tutorial by Goldman Banks, who serves as your constant adviser. Eventually, you may also hire him as one of the bank’s managers. During the brief tutorial stage, you’re basically told where to click and what to do, which mostly involve upgrading items like service desks and vaults for your bank.

Naturally, upgrade costs will be quite small while you’re starting out. But as you obtain more upgrades, increase your finances, and enhance your bank’s reputation, upgrades and additional items for improvement can cost a hand and a foot. It all boils down to proper money management and allocation so you can skip the long waiting times for your profits to reach an amount that can continuously pay for upgrades.

When it comes to upgrades, your bank is essentially composed of 4 main rooms that each have their dedicated function. In each room is a variety of items that can be upgraded individually. Each upgrade made to these individual items adds to the amount of profit you can generate per minute, as well as the number of stars you can earn to enhance your bank’s reputation. In a nutshell, upgrading more stuff means more expenses, but also more profit and reputation points.

That said, here are the 4 main rooms in your bank:

• Main Hall: This is where you receive clients. Upgrades in this room mostly involve improving your self-service desks, where clients can deposit their money, as well as decor, which also add to the money you receive.

• Service Area: This is where clients line up to deposit their money through tellers. Upgrades in this room involve increasing the speed at which tellers can process their clients’ deposits.

• Marketing Office: This is where marketing agents call clients. Upgrades for this room involve making your agents call clients faster. Decor items unlocked and upgraded in this room also increase the amount of money you receive from clients who want to make a deposit.

• Vault Room: This is where money is kept. Upgrades in this room involve making your bank’s vault capacity larger, as well as increase the speed of transporters, which carry money from the tellers to the vault.

You can see the effects of upgrades and unlocked items in your Statistics Panel, which is represented by a pie chart icon on the right-hand side of your screen. We’ll talk about the Statistics panel in a more in-depth manner in another section, but simply put, this feature of the game allows you to quickly view which areas need upgrading.

Despite the rather straightforward tutorial stage, accomplishing all you need to for your bank can get somewhat confusing and overwhelming in the middle. This is why we’ve prepared this handy guide for Idle Bank Tycoon: Money Empire so you can put your money in the right place, entice richer clients, upgrade your bank the right way, and progress through the levels with flying colors.

Let’s get right into it!

Finish Quests as Much as You Can

Upgrading your bank is one of the key ways you can earn a significant amount of profit. Basically, you have to spend money to make money. However, what becomes difficult in this regard is deciding which upgrades to prioritize. Keep in mind that upgrades can become expensive over time, so you need to be able to make the right choices that will benefit your bank.

Every upgrade you make increases your reputation by a little bit. Your bank’s reputation basically represents your level in the game. By accumulating reputation points, signified by the stars you earn, you fill up a bar. Once that bar is filled, you level up and are able to unlock richer clients who will become regulars in your bank.

In the case of upgrading and unlocking items in the three major rooms, the best way to accomplish them is by following quests. You can see these quests on the top part of your screen. You can view 3 quests at a time and will only be able to see other available quests once you finish at least 1 quest from the current queue.

Upon accomplishing a quest, you also fill up another bar for milestones. Every time you hit a milestone, you’ll get a reward. Milestones represent how much you’ve progressed overall in completing all the quests you need to do to bring your bank to its maximum capacity.

In the beginning, you’ll be able to breeze through quests, which may involve upgrading a certain room to a specific level, earning a certain amount of money, upgrading individual items, and many more. However, as you go along and gain more money and a higher reputation, finishing quests can become extremely costly, especially if you’re upgrading rooms and items. As mentioned, each upgrade accomplished makes succeeding upgrades cost higher.

So what can you do to finish as many quests as you can? Here are some of our recommendations:

• Try to finish quests that are the easiest or least costly first. Check the progress of your available quests and try to prioritize those that are closest to being completed. On the other hand, you may also prioritize quests that won’t rack up a huge expense. For instance, between upgrading 2 service desks to Level 3 and unlocking another vault, the former may be less expensive than the latter.
• Specifically for quests that require you to upgrade rooms to a certain level, unlocking a new item instead of upgrading existing items may be less expensive. For instance, your quest requires you to get the Service Area to Level 60. In this room, you already have 2 service desks each at Level 20, which puts the room’s overall level to 40.
  
  Instead of upgrading these 2 service desks for 10 more levels each, consider unlocking a new decor item or another service desk if you can afford either. This is because when you unlock a new item, the cost of upgrading it 20 levels higher will certainly be less than when you’re upgrading from Level 21 up since the compound cost won’t be as high since the item starts from Level 1.
  
  Of course, you can’t pursue this option when you’ve already unlocked all items for a room and leveled them up to a certain point. However, the method we suggested may help you finish quests faster and free up the queue for a new one.
• See which quests align with the suggestions presented by Goldman Banks in the Statistics Panel. If such a quest is available, consider prioritizing it to hit two birds with one stone.

Check the Statistics Panel

Speaking of the Statistics Panel, this is where you can see a neatly organized summary of how much you’re earning. Additionally, this is where Goldman Banks will offer suggestions about which areas of the bank need further improvement. Occasionally, you will see that a segment of the Statistics Panel is highlighted in yellow or red—this means that this aspect of your bank is underperforming or could use a boost.

If you click on the magnifying glass icon, it will direct you to the room where this particular aspect is related so you can make the necessary upgrades. Usually, these coincide with the suggestion that Goldman Banks offers.

Let’s go through each of the 4 major divisions your Statistics Panel has:

• Total Payouts: Cash indicated in this section mostly comes from upgrading the Marketing Office. The Decor Cash, in particular, represents how much overall cash you earn from decor you’ve unlocked and upgraded regardless of the room they’re in.
• Service Area: The money indicated in this section comes from, as the section’s name suggests, upgrades in the Service Area.
• Vault Room: The stats in this section are those that can be improved in the Vault Room, such as vault and transporter capacity.
• Area Completion: This is a quick view of how much each room has progressed. Rooms increase in progression depending on how many items in it you’ve unlocked, as well as the level of each individual item.

Now, why is it important to always check the Statistics Panel? It’s so you can make the necessary improvements to aspects of your bank that may be underperforming. At the same time, knowing what general part needs improvement can help you pursue a more budget-friendly route for upgrades.

For instance, you see the Transporters section is in the red. Can you afford to upgrade existing transporters or would it be more affordable to unlock another transporter and level it up from the beginning? It all boils down to managing your money and knowing where to allocate them best.

Managing Your Managers

As you can see, owning a bank takes a lot of work so you’re going to need the help of managers who can help run the bank for you. When you unlock managers after reaching a certain level, you’ll be able to hire them to boost the proficiency of staff.

Of course, managers also need managing. But before you can do that, it’s important to know a couple of things about them so you can select the best managers for the job.

Specialties

Some people are jacks-of-all-trades while others specialize in certain fields. Managers fall into the latter category. Each manager has their own specialty and this will dictate which position they can best perform in. As a beginner, there are 3 specialties you will encounter for managers:

• Operations: Managers with this specialty can be assigned to the Main Hall and the Service Area. A manager with an Operations specialty has a gear icon on their card.
• Communications: Managers with this specialty can be assigned to the Marketing Office. A manager with a Communications specialty has a speech bubble icon on their card.
• Accountancy: Managers with this specialty can be assigned to the Service area. A manager with an Accountancy specialty has a calculator icon on their card.

You can see the manager’s specialty when you view their card. When you access a room in the bank and click the Managers tab, you’ll see how many managers you can hire to supervise that room and your options will depend on which manager has the specialty aligned with that room.

Tiers

Managers also have tiers: Rare, Epic, and Legendary. You can say that this represents their job experience and expertise. Of course, the higher the tier, the higher the base efficiency and productivity of a certain manager. You may obtain managers from briefcases, which you may acquire as rewards for completing quests or when you purchase them at the shop. One briefcase opened will contain 1 manager card. Depending on the briefcase you open, you’ll be able to get managers of different tiers.

• Intern Briefcase: You may get 5 free Intern Briefcases from the shop, which can yield Rare, Epic, or Legendary managers. Intern Briefcases can refresh after a certain waiting time.

• Senior Briefcase: Opening this briefcase can yield Rare, Epic, or Legendary managers.

• Director Briefcase: This briefcase gives you either an Epic or Legendary manager.

Sometimes, when you open a briefcase, you’ll get a card for a manager you already have. These duplicate manager cards can be used to promote managers. Rare-tier managers usually need just 1 card to be promoted, but higher-tier managers may need 2 or more.

Rare-tier managers have a max promotion level of 2 stars while Epic and Legendary managers can be promoted up to 5 stars. You don’t necessarily have to use the exact duplicate card of that particular manager to promote them. Any duplicate card will do as long as you have the adequate number. 

Promoting a manager will increase their efficiency and productivity levels. Productivity levels are measured in percentage and this directly affects the room in which a manager is assigned. For instance, if you assign Grace Styles to the Service Area, her productivity level will affect how much money you get from the Service Area. You can view this in the Assignments section of the Managers tab.

Efficiency levels, on the other hand, affect how well you’ll do in an Audit, which can be accessed in Business Mode.

Business Mode

Business Mode can be accessed via the icon on the lower right-hand portion of the screen, represented by a clipboard. Business Mode is basically where you can earn light bulbs, which are used to level up managers. Similar to promoting managers, leveling them up with light bulbs will increase their efficiency and productivity rates. However, leveling up happens in smaller but more frequent increments compared to promotions.

When you access Business Mode, you’ll see that you can click the Manage button in exchange for cash. The more you “Manage,” the higher the cost as you go along. Whenever you click that button, you also earn light bulbs and fill up a progress bar.

The progress bar is marked by 3 green bags and 1 red calendar at the end of the bar. Each time you reach a green bag, you’re considered to have completed a stage and will be rewarded with a large amount of light bulbs. When you reach the red calendar, your bank will be audited.

Audits

Audits are like quick challenges that can yield some pretty good rewards. In video game parlance, it’s akin to a mini boss fight. During audits, the efficiency and specialties of your managers will come into play.

Basically, during an audit, you will be faced with Coppersly Banks, Goldman’s cousin who seems to be dead set on making your bank fail just to spite his cousin.

To “defeat” him, you need to have 2 things:

• The right manager with the right specialty
• Managers with the highest possible efficiency levels

Every time you decide to take on an audit, you will have to match your managers with the right specialty and efficiency according to the auditor’s terms. For instance, in a particular audit, you will be required to assign 1 manager with a Communications specialty and 1 manager with an Accountancy specialty. Their combined efficiency levels should be able to match or exceed the auditor’s efficiency requirement, which will increase the more audits you take on.

If you match a manager with the specialty requirement, you’ll get a 25% bonus against the auditor. However, if you fail to pass an audit, you won’t be able to move on to the next chapter of Business Mode (fortunately, your bank won’t actually be closed).

If you happen to find yourself not being able to meet an audit’s requirements, you can postpone taking on the challenge and pursue any or all of these 3 ways to pass:

• Upgrade managers: Use light bulbs to level up managers and increase their efficiency levels. Aside from clicking the Manage button in Business Mode, you can earn more light bulbs by fulfilling quests. You can also passively earn light bulbs through interns. After any waiting period, you may collect light bulbs from interns. The longer you wait before collection, the more light bulbs they can produce.
• Promote managers: If you have duplicate manager cards, you may promote managers to increase their stars. Doing so will allow you to level them up even further provided they have yet to reach their max star level.
• Get more managers: You can do this by opening more briefcases. Of course, getting higher-tier managers will be more favorable for audits. Other than that, just getting more managers in general will allow you to choose which among them have the specialties needed to successfully complete an audit.

Thus, when it comes to managers, don’t neglect even those belonging to the lowest tier as any upgrade will come in handy, especially during audits. On the whole, having managers with high efficiency and productivity levels will also increase the money you produce.

The total number of managers you’ve unlocked and acquired can also affect how much offline rewards (both cash and light bulbs) you can collect upon relogging into the game. Each manager is equivalent to an additional 30 minutes and you can earn a total of 12 hours’ worth of offline rewards provided you have enough managers to reach that duration.

Watch Ads for More Rewards

At this point, you would have already realized that upgrades for bank improvements and managers will all eventually cost a fortune. Higher upgrades come at higher prices, but there will come a time when you won’t be earning enough to sustain them. You can either wait for your cash reserves to increase or just watch ads to augment your current finances.

Ads can, admittedly, be a little bit distracting and, at times, annoying, especially when they pop up too frequently. Fortunately, in Idle Bank Tycoon, you’re given the option to watch ads or refuse them. Though not all players would want to watch ads, there are some very helpful perks you can get if you do choose to watch ads in this game. Some of these perks include the following:

• 2x Profit Boost: On the bottom part of your screen, you will see a green button with x2 Boost on it. If you click on this button, you will be asked to watch an ad so you can double your earnings.
  
  Double profit boosts come in 2-hour increments and you can boost your profits for a total of 12 hours (which means you have to watch 6 ads to get the full duration). We recommend taking advantage of this perk in small doses unless you plan to play continuously for more than 2 hours.

• Instant Reward: From time to time, you’ll catch a red play button on the right side of your screen. If you click it, you can watch an ad for instant cash. The cash you receive can vary so if you feel like the amount is too low, you may always ignore this option. However, we do recommend taking advantage of this occasionally, especially if your cash reserves are running low.

• 2x Offline Rewards: Since Idle Bank Tycoon is an idle management game, your bank will continue to earn even if you log off for a few hours. When you return to the game, you have the option to watch an ad to double your offline earnings.
  
  As mentioned previously, you can earn a maximum of 12 hours’ worth of offline rewards provided you have enough managers to extend the reward duration. Usually, offline rewards can be pretty high, especially if you log off for a prolonged period.

• Intern Briefcases: At the shop, you can get Intern Briefcases which, as mentioned, can give you Rare, Epic, and Legendary managers. To open 1 briefcase, you need to watch an ad. You can refresh 1 briefcase after a 2-hour waiting period. You can refresh a maximum of 5 briefcases.

• 2x Light Bulbs: Similar to collecting double offline rewards, you may also collect twice the amount of light bulbs produced by interns when you watch an ad. Again, the longer you wait, the more light bulbs you can collect, though it still has a maximum amount. Similar to the offline rewards, the number of managers you have can affect how many light bulbs you can earn after a waiting period.

Watching ads might not be the most appealing way to earn some extra rewards, but there’s certainly no harm in doing them. Letting ads play for 30 to 45 seconds doesn’t sound like such a bad compromise when you get to earn a hefty amount of rewards that can benefit improving both your bank and managers on the whole.

Spend Your Gold Ingots Wisely

Other than in-game cash, you might have noticed another type of currency present in the form of gold ingots. These gold ingots are considered premium currency, which you can purchase from the shop using real money. They can also be earned as rewards from successfully completing quests or audits.

Similar to most premium currencies in any other game, you earn only a small amount of gold ingots whenever you have the chance to do so. Over time, you will have accumulated enough gold ingots to purchase something good from the shop.

But what exactly do you purchase with gold ingots?

You have 4 options:

• Senior or Director Briefcases
• Light bulbs
• Instant cash
• 3x rewards (compared to 2x rewards by watching ads)

Now all of these sound like important things necessary to upgrade either your bank or managers. However, if there’s one thing that’s worth spending gold ingots on, it would be to get instant cash. This is because you’ll be spending a lot of in-game cash to upgrade the rooms and items in your bank.

With 4 rooms that have a variety of items that can go beyond Level 100, you can just imagine how much cash you’ll need to max out every item in each room. Sure, you can earn extra cash by watching ads and completing quests, but cash still remains as the resource that you’ll be spending a lot of compared to light bulbs.

Additionally, you can earn Senior or Director Briefcases by completing quests, most of which involve you having to upgrade certain items to reach a specific level—which primarily needs cash to be accomplished.

Overall, instant cash appears to be the resource worth spending gold ingots on simply because it’s the one you’ll need the most to get the bank working as it should. As we said before, you have to spend money to make money.

Once you’re able to max out all items in all rooms, you’ll be able to have a 100% completion level and move on to the next bank. Since you start with a small bank in a small town, you can easily bring the first bank to a 100% completion level in a matter of hours provided you follow all the quests as much as you can. Once you’re done with the first bank, it will be marked sold and you’ll move onto the next bank.

Of course, the second and succeeding banks take more time to complete since they’re bigger and rooms have more items to upgrade. However, if you follow the tips we’ve discussed above, getting a 100% completion rate for bigger banks will be much easier and even take less time.

That said, this ends our guide for Idle Bank Tycoon: Money Empire! What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced by the time you got to the second bank? Do you have a favorite manager or one you’re eyeing to get? Do you think Coppersly will ever become friendly towards Goldman? Are there any other tips and tricks you’d like to share with your fellow bank owners? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment area!