[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

The cultural reasoning is the population's wariness of 'dept pits' (i.e. situations where one becomes indebted, then loses the source of income that was meant to pay off the dept, resulting in the dept growing and growing, eventually bankrupting the indebted person).

Correction: resulting in debt growing and growing, with no ability to pay the debt off. The concept of bankruptcy dates to the 16th century and thus postdates most anti-usury codes; it's actually intended as a solution to the problem of unpayable debt. The other significant modern solution to this problem is incorporation -- you create an artificial entity with assets and debts, and if the corporation's net worth becomes negative, it gets dissolved without affecting the shareholder's personal assets (unless they engage in malfeasance). Both cases have significant costs for a borrower who fails to repay a loan, but they do allow a complete discharge of debt while retaining some personal assets.

Also note that spaceship loans are generally secured loans, and though the rules don't address it, may be structured as a non-recourse loan. This means that, in the event of the borrower going into default, the bank seizes the asset to recover its costs, and the remaining debt, if any, is discharged.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

the fact that in our techpath, banks can basically wash their hands off in case something goes wrong

Well, if they don't mind losing a bunch of money, sure.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

, and thus are incentivized to give credits even to people who aren't all that likely to be able to handle them which in turn leads to bad stuff.

It's perfectly possible to set up rules that discourage this. It has the side effect of a large underclass of people who cannot get legal credit, which causes its own class of problems (for example, you need a car to get a better job, but you cannot save up enough money for a car until you get a better job, so if you can't get a loan, you can't get a better job).

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

As discussed by others, when there's reduced demand for alternative ways of financing, of which two seem more easy to handle while avoiding use of interest:

1. Co-ownership of a ship as an enterprise (e.g. 20%:80%), with the bank receiving a portion of the earnings pro rata, with the captain having and retaining the right to buy the shares from the bank, with some pre-agreements about what the price is and how it may or may not be adjusted. This seems to be the silent partner path, with some adjustments.
2. Co-ownership of a ship, with the right to buy it out piece by piece, again with some pre-agreements, plus rental of the bank-owned fraction to the captain. This seems to be more appropriate for ships used for non-earnings-generating ships, such as a yacht that the captain uses purely for recreation.

The first differs from interest in that the bank makes more money if you do better than expected, and less money if you do worse than expected. It has a tendency to result in legal rules that allow the bank to meddle with your business if you seem to be doing a bad job.

The second does not differ meaningfully from a conventional secured loan, and can be treated as one.