Regional Currencies
Description
'A regional currency is a particular form of complementary currency: it is an agreement within the community of a region to accept something other than legal tender as a means of payment. It connects unused resources with unmet needs at the regional level. Some regional currencies start out as smaller local systems and grow to serve a larger area in response to demand over time, like the Chiemgauer in Germany (p.XX) or the Dane County Time Bank in the USA (p.XX). Others begin to serve a whole region from the beginning, like the Talente Tauschkreis in Austria (p.XX) or the WIR Bank in Switzerland (p.XX). None of the systems featured in this book have yet grown to any significant economic scale but they all play an important role as demonstration projects for what is possible in creating wealth locally and maintaining community." (source: The Promise of Regional Currencies)
Characteristics
Key elements of a regional currency
Following are three commonly useful ‘building-blocks’ for a sustainable regional currency, based on many years of experience in various countries around the world.
1. A voucher system or circulating currency is used in the same way as conventional cash or current accounts for payment of small, everyday amounts of money. There are various designs: it can be valued at par with national currency (most systems that issue printed currency except Time Banks); it can be backed by the promise to supply goods and services (Ithaca HOURS p.XX); it can be redeemable for national currency (Chiemgauer p.XX, BerkShares p.XX, Brixton Pound p.XX), often for an exchange fee; it can be redeemable for rewards (Blaengarw Time Centre p.XX); it can be issued from an account in an exchange ring (Talente Tauschkreis Vorarlberg p.XX).
2. An exchange ring allows for the cash-free settlement of bills and the setting up of mutual credit lines between individuals and firms. It works best for small to medium enterprises, individuals and voluntary associations. It provides them with improved access to liquid funds or credit. See Talente Tauschkreis Vorarlberg (p.XX), WIR Bank (p.XX), The Business Exchange (p.XX), RES (p.XX) and Dane County Time Bank (p.XX).
3. A micro-credit bank offers low interest or interest free loans in both local and national currency for production or consumption. See Banco Palmas (p.XX), WIR Bank (p.XX), BerkShares (p.XX) and Chiemgauer (p.XX)." (source: The Promise of Regional Currencies)
Directory
This map shows all types of local currency around the world: http://complementarycurrency.org/ccDatabase/maps/worldmap.php