New report by finance sector expert provides blow by blow account of how a transition from sterling to a Scottish Currency should happen
A NEW Common Weal report has provided a detailed account of exactly how a new Scottish Currency should be established in an independent Scotland.
The report, How to make a Currency: A Practical Guide, can be read in full here.
It is authored by Peter Ryan, who has worked in IT in the financial sector for over 25 years and has an intimate knowledge of payment systems and currency issues. The report provides a blow by blow account of the transition that would be necessary to move from Sterling to a Scottish Currency, and looks into how this would work in everything from mortgages to company accounts.
Key points in the report include:
- A three year transition period after independence will be necessary to introduce a new Scottish Currency. An electronic currency should be introduced first, pegged 1:1 with Sterling over the whole of the transition, before introducing a physical Scottish Currency near the end of the transition period.
- Allow individuals to convert bank accounts from Sterling to Scottish Pound across the transition period. Conversions after the transition period will incur a transaction cost, paid for by commercial banks.
- A domestic and international payment infrastructure will need to be established. There is the potential to establish a Scottish Government owned centralised system for this.
- It will take just two years for the Scottish Central Bank to be turning a profit through seigniorage, based on an initial investment of £50m in starting up the currency.
- An equivalence between the new Scottish Currency and Sterling over the transition period will ensure prices initially stay the same.
- The payment of taxes and the recieving of welfare payments should be introduced as early as possible into the life of the new currency.
- The Scottish Government would have to decide to whether to redenominate the debt into the new Scottish Currency or alternatively keep the debt in Sterling and make the repayments in Sterling.
- At the start of the transition period, a working group would oversee the introduction of the new Scottish Currency, before a Scottish Central Bank takes over when the physical currency is introduced
The report is part of the White Paper Project, a series of reports produced by Common Weal to renew the case for Scottish independence, which will be brought together into a draft white paper for independence in January 2017.
Commenting on the report, author Peter Ryan stated: “My motivation for writing the paper was to put into the public domain facts about how a Scottish Currency could be established based on my previous experience with currency conversions. In recent referendums I have been concerned that the public have not had the clear information they need to make a decision. I felt we needed to move the debate beyond sound bites and to set out a plan that said not only what we could achieve but to demonstrate how we would achieve it.”
The independence movement needs to be clear and open about exactly what it means to be an independent nation and how we can go about creating such a nation. That is the reassurance that many soft No voters said they wanted in the last referendum and it is what we should be providing them with in the next one.” Robin McAlpine
Robin McAlpine, Director of Common Weal, said that he believed How to Make a Currency was “by far the most detailed and authoritative paper yet produced on how to introduce a Scottish currency in the event of independence.”
He added: “It has been produced by an author with detailed first-hand knowledge of introducing currencies and while there is a lot of work required to transition to the currency it also shows that this work is made up of a series of perfectly manageable steps. The independence movement needs to be clear and open about exactly what it means to be an independent nation and how we can go about creating such a nation. That is the reassurance that many soft No voters said they wanted in the last referendum and it is what we should be providing them with in the next one.”
Craig Dalzell, Head of Research at Common Weal, said: “This paper represents a substantial step in terms of the depth of thinking that is now being employed within the independence movement. The question of currency, once one of the independence campaign’s weakest points, has now been conclusively answered in a manner that can no longer be argued against in terms of its practicality. Not only can an independent Scotland have it’s own independent currency, the plan for designing and launching it in a smooth and orderly manner has been laid out in an open and straightforward way and can clearly proceed on our own terms and without the fear of veto from anyone outside of Scotland.”