The sovereign fiscal layer. Reserve policy, FIG monetary stability, PIF deployment authorization, and the Steward agents that execute fiscal operations — governed by the Foundation, separated from deal deployment, modeled on the structure that manages $941 billion in Saudi Arabia.
From 1971 to 2015, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund operated as an arm of the Ministry of Finance — a sleepy desk with 40 employees managing passive equity holdings. When MBS restructured the Kingdom's economic architecture, the first move was separation. The PIF was pulled from the Ministry of Finance and placed under CEDA (the Council of Economic and Development Affairs) — a coordination body that sits above both the Ministry and the PIF, chaired by the Crown Prince himself.
The result was three distinct sovereign financial pillars, each with a different mandate, risk tolerance, and time horizon:
The system works because the functions are separated. SAMA doesn't make deals. The Ministry of Finance doesn't pick investments. The PIF doesn't set monetary policy. And CEDA — the coordination council — governs all three without operating any of them. This is why $941B can be deployed aggressively without destabilizing the Kingdom's reserves. Different mandates, different risk tolerances, one coordination layer.
Firma replicates this separation. The Foundation (like CEDA) coordinates. The Ministry of Finance (like SAMA + MoF combined) manages reserves and sets fiscal policy. The PIF and Syndicate (like Saudi PIF) deploy capital into deals. No function crosses into another. The separation is what makes institutional counterparties trust the system — because reserve capital is governed differently from deal capital, and deal capital is governed differently from operating capital.
The reporting chain answers two questions: who authorizes what (humans making decisions) and who executes what (Steward agents running operations within authorized parameters). Both chains terminate at the Foundation. Neither chain allows any single function to self-authorize.
The Ministry cannot authorize its own budget — the Foundation does. The PIF cannot set its own deployment limits — the Ministry does. The Syndicate cannot approve its own deals — the PIF does. Labs cannot retain its own revenue — the Treasury Allocation governs it. And at the agentic layer: no agent can exceed the parameters set by the human-governed layer above it. This is separation of powers. Every function is checked by another function. This is how the Saudi model prevents $941B from becoming a personal slush fund — and how Firma prevents the treasury from becoming anyone's piggy bank.
The Ministry of Finance governs five policy domains. Each has defined parameters, authorized agents, and escalation paths to the Foundation for changes that exceed Ministry authority.
The Ministry does not pick deals — the PIF does. The Ministry does not build technology — Labs does. The Ministry does not govern the protocol — the Foundation does. The Ministry does not administer the IP Trust — the Foundation does. The Ministry does not run the marketplace — the 1ACCORD Commons does. The Ministry sets fiscal constraints and manages reserves. Everything else belongs to someone else.
The Ministry's fiscal policies are executed by Steward agents — autonomous systems that operate within Ministry-authorized parameters, report through the Attestation Registry Bridge, and can be overridden by the human fiscal committee at any time. Agents execute. Humans govern. The Ministry is where agentic operations and human oversight converge.
Roca Bank is the institutional interface between traditional finance and the Firma ecosystem. It can trade RWAs and hold both physical and digital assets internationally — making it the operational arm of the Ministry's reserve strategy. While the Ministry sets policy, Roca executes the physical-world reserve operations that back FIG, support Elemint baskets, and provide institutional counterparties with the custody and compliance infrastructure they require.
Roca Bank is not independent. It reports to the Ministry of Finance fiscal committee for all reserve-related operations. Roca can trade, hold, and convert assets — but only within Ministry-authorized parameters. New asset classes, new jurisdictions, and new counterparty relationships all require Ministry approval. Roca is the hands of the Ministry in the physical world — not a bank making its own investment decisions.
The Ministry of Finance is the missing layer between governance and deployment — the fiscal function that ensures reserve policy, FIG stability, and treasury allocation happen within constitutional constraints, executed by Steward agents, with Roca Bank bridging the physical and digital worlds.