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Bristol Pound

Business members joining the scheme can accept payments in £B, which can then be spent only with other business members. This has the effect of encouraging local businesses to localise their supply chains, and in turn makes each business scheme member to be a more likely to benefit from sales to other members. This helps to create a more resilient city, less reliant on external market forces, as well as helping to create more jobs in the SME sector, and reducing transport-related carbon emissions.
Consumer scheme members (and the general public through the paper currency) can support retail, hospitality and domestic service supply members directly, and add to the liquidity of the currency.
Whilst the currency is the tool through which we operate, the proposition of the Bristol Pound is much wider: it is the network of scheme members and the quality of the relationships between them which enables the currency to circulate and thus creates the social, economic and environmental impacts through which we can deliver on our aims.
As well as operating the currency, we therefore focus our work on promoting business scheme members to both consumers and businesses, through our communications and events work.
Our current digital currency was ahead of its time when we launched, but no longer meets either our or our members’ needs. So, to enable a scaling-up, both in terms of growing the numbers of members and transactions, and in terms of supporting a data-driven approach to delivery of our social impact aims, a new digital platform is now needed. We are currently exploring our options for the version 2 digital currency, including blockchain and tracking the fast-moving changes in payments technology.

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