 |
Bristol
pound banknotes, which all contain symbols of local pride
(AFP/File, Handout)
|
BRISTOL,
United Kingdom — As Britain loses faith in its banks and feels shockwaves from
the euro crisis, one city is trying to keep local wealth in local pockets with
the launch of its own currency.
The Bristol pound -- usable only with member businesses in the city in southwest England --
is to launch in September, and organisers are deluged with local firms wanting
to sign up.
"The
perception of banking and money is that it's a very ruthless system: people are
out for what they can get," co-founder Ciaran Mundy told AFP.
"This
is about saying yes to something new. It's tapping into a different set of
values about money."
The scheme
has "captured people's imaginations", he added, in a recession-hit
year when British banks have been beset by scandals and ministers talked openly
of a possible euro collapse.
Hundreds of
businesses have joined, from the acclaimed Arnolfini arts centre to the Chandos
deli chain, and the launch had to be postponed from May to September 19 because
of the level of interest.
 |
Bristol is
the first big city in
Britain to launch a local currency.
(AFP/File, Adrian
Dennis)
|
Security
professional Richard Wright signed up his company Wright Guard as soon as he
heard about the Bristol pound, hoping it would help him fight back against
encroaching security giants.
"I'm
Bristol born and bred, and I always want to support local businesses," he
told AFP. "I'll want to keep the Bristol pound flowing."
The notes
feature symbols of local pride from nineteenth-century religious writer Hannah
More to the Concorde aircraft, partly developed in Bristol, and images of the
St Paul's Carnival Caribbean street festival.
Evoking a
long history of dissent, one side of the £5 note shows a tiger writing on a
wall in graffiti: "O Liberty!"
Other
British towns have launched local currencies, but Bristol, home to half a
million people, is the first big city, and its scheme is ambitious.
Businesses
can pay local taxes in Bristol pounds and the council has offered its 17,000
staff the option of receiving part of their pay in the currency.
Mundy's
team -- funded initially by grants -- have designed an electronic system for
payments by text message, plus what they say are forgery-proof notes.
Stores
selling products from cider to skate shoes said they were considering joining
the scheme, which Mundy believes will have a tangible economic effect.
"Eighty
percent of the money leaves the area if it is spent with a multinational -- but
80 percent stays if it is spent at a local trader," he said.
Such
localism might seem strange in a city that grew to prosperity as an
international port and is now a centre for aircraft manufacture.
But Bristol
is also a left-wing haven with an activist tradition. The People's Republic of
Stokes Croft, an urban renewal group, made headlines last year with a campaign that
became a riot in protest at the opening of a Tesco supermarket.
They have
greeted the Bristol pound warmly.
"We
need to run things from the bottom up and from the grassroots, so that people
have control over how things happen where they live," said spokesman Chris
Chalkley.
But Louisa
Jones and Joh Rindom, co-owners of Stokes Croft vintage clothing store Shop
Dutty, thought the scheme would just add to their administrative burden.
"We're
sceptical that having a micro economy within a macro economy is a bit
backward," Rindom said.
Ben
Yearsley, investment manager at Bristol-based financial services firm
Hargreaves Lansdown, also won't be rushing to convert his sterling.
"It's
just a big gift voucher scheme... I'm sceptical that it's going to make any difference,"
he told AFP.
"Local
businesses need to compete on quality and service."
The Bristol
pound will not be legal tender and must be exchanged through the Bristol Credit
Union, with a three percent charge for conversion back to sterling.
This and
charges on electronic transactions will pay its running costs.
Despite the
naysayers, Mundy hopes hundreds of thousands of Bristol pounds will be traded
in its first year, increasing to "double figures of millions" by the
third.
 |
A man holds
euro notes and the
"Chiemgauer", the local currency of the
southern
German city of Raubling.
(DDP/AFP/File, Lennart Preiss)
|
His model
is the Chiemgauer, a German complementary currency of which millions of euros'
worth is traded yearly.
Online
database complementarycurrency.org lists more than 225 such minority currencies
worldwide, of which 102 are in Europe.
They have
won a high-profile advocate in Bernard Lietaer, a Belgian economist who helped
design and implement the convergence mechanism for the euro.
"We
will never have a stable, sustainable monetary system with a single monopoly of
a single type of currency, whoever manages it," he said in a lecture in
Brussels.
"Everybody
can do something at their own scale... sustainability requires diversity,"
he added.
Mundy said
that the ultimate test of his system would be the market.
"If
people freely decide to market and trade with each other (in the currency), they
should be able to do it," he said.
"If
we're not doing a good job they won't use the system. Consumers will
decide."
Related Articles:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.