Our Resilient Financial System – B2B Mutual Credit – June 18th

By now almost everyone knows we’re heading into troubling economic times. This was going to be true to some degree due to leaving the EU. But now the situation is more challenging. Many businesses will fold and some will drastically change. How can we strengthen and ‘shock proof’ our local and regional economies to ensure we have secure livelihoods, enough fresh and nutritious food, and reliable supply networks supporting the NHS and other critical institutions? There’s lots of potential for positive change, but one of the essential elements to a stable and resilient local economy is a stable and resilient local financial system.

Please join us for this series of online talks led by local experts and financial innovators. These talks are open to anyone, but they will be of particular interest to local councillors and officers, local business leaders and progressive entrepreneurs, as well as social innovators and community organisers.

One of the innovations that could make a difference in helping local and regional businesses survive this recession is mutual credit. Businesses extend credit all the time. But when it’s mutualised through networks spread across the economy, there is credit, liquidity, and a means of exchange. An innovation, but one with a long history. For example, the Swiss Wir goes back over a hundred years and is on a scale of billions of francs!  Can this work in Torbay, across Devon and the South West?

Join Sophie Paterson, co-director of Lowimpact.org and member of the Mutual Credit Clubs collaboration, will share the what, why and how of mutual credit and explore how it could help us drive localisation and circularity, emphasising value creation over growth-for-growth’s sake. She may give us a sneak peak progress toward launching in the South West, too.

Click here to register:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtcOCoqT4qHtKb87-Y6Ee9oeY57Fn-KRtH

Future talks in this series:

June 25th – BenComs and Community Shares – Andrew Shadrake, Local Spark associate and CoopsUK consultant, will lead this session on how new cooperative models and build local economic resilience.

July 2nd – Banking for Resilience – Tony Greenham, co-founder of the South West Mutual, a customer-owned regional bank, will explain how regional banks focused on serving the needs of local and regional SMEs provides a critical layer of stability – and credit in times of financial difficulty.