Episode 6 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast.
You can download this episode directly here.
Common Weal’s Head of Policy & Research Craig Dalzell is joined by special guest Peter Ryan, a financial systems expert and repeat contributor to Common Weal’s policy library on matters to do with currency.
In his latest policy paper, Paying Our Way, Peter lays out the case for a Scottish Payments Initiation System which would cut the cost of transactions between people and organisations in Scotland and allow Scotland to capture those costs within the Scottish economy rather than see them leave overseas into the profits of multinational companies like Visa, Amazon, Paypal and others.
This system would also allow Scottish businesses to earn a fee for providing cash to customers – rather than paying a fee for offering Cashback services or for hosting an ATM – and would support local economies in remote areas which are currently under threat of losing their bank branches and ATMs.
Finally, this service could lay the groundwork for a Scottish currency in the event of independence and could significantly reduce the timescales and roadblocks that could otherwise be set up to make the process harder. Crucially, this groundwork could be laid well ahead of independence itself.
Peter’s paper can be read here.
As can his accompanying articles here.
and here.
His previous paper How to Make a Currency can be read here.
And his work on building Scotland’s foreign exchange reserves can be read here.
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The Policy Podcast would like to discuss all of Common Weal’s policy papers in detail over the next several months so if there are any papers that you would like to see covered sooner rather than later, send your suggestions in to craig@common.scot
Theme
“Hiding Your Reality” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/