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Money Systems
We take our money for granted, rather like fish take water for granted. As Bernard Lietaer says, we need to have
a flying-fish's view to really understand what money is and how our money systems effect almost everything that we do.
The present financial crisis has clearly highlighted the dangers inherent
in the lack of flexibility of our money-systems.
Complementary Currencies have proven to have
the power and flexibility to overcome many of the limitations of our
money-systems, particularly as a means of facilitating local serices
and exchanges which would have been left undone without the new currency.
The Impact of I.T.
Information technologies and the Internet have given us the tools to create flexible complementary currency systems at trivial cost. Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, already asked in 1999: "Is it possible that advances in technology will mean that the world may come to resemble a pure exchange economy?" and continued "There is no reason, in principle, why final settlements could not be carried out by the private sector without the need for clearing through the central bank. Without such a role in settlements, central banks, in their present form, would no longer exist; nor would money". One technology now emerging which is making Mr King's forecasts a reality is that of C3 or Commercial Credit Systems.
C3 Systems
C3 Systemscan be seen as financial innovations which are able to facilitate trade, provide cash-flow and deal with unemployment in environments where there is simply a lack of money. Perhaps the best-known of these is the Swiss WIR system which arose in the 1930s as a way to add liquidity into the Swiss financial system - today it has assets of nearly 4Bn CHF. In cases where C3 currencies can be used to pay local or even national taxes - potentially huge gains in flexibility and unprecedented upswings in economic activity can be realized. A current pioneer in such initiatives is the state of Uruguay.
Implementation
In order to successfully implement such C3 systems, a robust software
system is required which can handle secure, transparent transactions across
the Internet, by mobile phone or by the use of card-readers. The Dutch-based
STRO organization has developed
just such a system, Cyclos, which
is already in use amongst providers of complementary currency systems
in a number of countries.
Xecnet has extensive experience in working with the Cyclos system