Reinventing Banking: From Russia to Iceland to Ecuador - Ellen Brown

[Helen Dew]

Globally, the banking landscape is undergoing significant change! The proposed re-financing of Kiwibank could prompt a wider exploration of banking options in New Zealand.

A look at Ellen Brown’s report on the global banking scene is a good place to start:

Reinventing Banking: From Russia to Iceland to Ecuador

by ELLEN BROWN

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/11/reinventing-banking-from-russia-to-iceland-to-ecuador/

 

Global developments in finance and geopolitics are prompting a rethinking of the structure of banking and of the nature of money itself. Among other interesting news items:

* In Russia, vulnerability to Western sanctions has led to proposals for a banking system that is not only independent of the West but is based on different design principles.

* In Iceland, the booms and busts culminating in the banking crisis of 2008-09 have prompted lawmakers to consider a plan to remove the power to create money from private banks.

* In Ireland, Iceland and the UK, a recession-induced shortage of local credit has prompted proposals for a system of public interest banks on the model of the Sparkassen of Germany.

* In Ecuador, the central bank is responding to a shortage of US dollars (the official Ecuadorian currency) by issuing digital dollars through accounts to which everyone has access, effectively making it a bank of the people.

Read more: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/11/reinventing-banking-from-russia-to-iceland-to-ecuador/

 

Helen Dew

LIVING ECONOMIES Educational Trust

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Living Economies promotes and supports interest-free systems of exchange to complement money in local communities.

 

[Christoph Hensch]

In follow up of this, here two other developments in Switzerland:

Sovereign Money Initiative - http://www.vollgeld-initiative.ch/english/

Switzerland has a citizen initiated referendum on the ability of banks to create money - the Sovereign Money Initiative. (more here: http://www.vollgeld-initiative.ch/fa/img/English/2015_10_22_Swiss_Sovereign_Money_Initiative_-_five_questions_with_answers.pdf). On 1 Dec 2015 more than 111'000 signatures were deposited with the federal government, which will trigger a popular vote on the issue. The date of the vote has not been set yet, but the campaign is in full swing.

The other interesting development is an initiative for an unconditional basic income (UBI). (http://www.basicincome.org/news/2014/08/switerland-government-reacts-negatively-to-ubi-proposal/)

The vote will probably take time sometime in 2016. 

Even if both initiatives are rejected, it still means that government and industry will have to study the proposals and come up with an argument rejecting or supporting the projects. The population in general will be engaged in a far ranging discussion about the money creation process and basic social structures like an UBI.

Christoph Hensch

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