HSCB’s public mint mimics and subverts money creation but what is money, how is it created and what alternatives to the current model of money creation might exist? This debate brings together ideas about new and alternative currencies from crypto to cashless systems based on moral accounting and exchange. It looks at how and if these work and how to push for a system of money creation working for and not against the people.

FEATURING:

BRETT SCOTT. Journalist, campaigner and the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money (2013). He works on financial reform, alternative finance and economic activism with a wide variety of NGOs, artists, students and start-ups, and writes for publications such as The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired Magazine and CNN.com. He is a Senior Fellow of the Finance Innovation Lab, an Associate at the Institute of Social Banking and an advisory group member of the Brixton Pound. He tweets as @suitpossum.

DUNCAN MCCANN. Researcher at New Economics Foundation (NEF) and Research Fellow at City University. At NEF Duncan currently works on rethinking money, looking for solutions to our land and housing crisis, and the future of the digital economy and its impact on society. At City University he is working on the potential of Social Wealth funds to fund a citizen's dividend and fundamentally change the distribution of wealth in the economy. On money, Duncan works on creating a better understanding of national money systems and how they could be reformed as well as building the knowledge around community and local currencies and working with communities to develop them. Duncan is co-author of the book People Powered Money, he proposed ‘ScotPound’, a national complementary currency for Scotland, and worked for 2 years with the Positive Money campaign group.

SUE WHEAT, WALTHAM FOREST LETS. LETS is a scheme for local people to exchange skills, goods and services using an alternative currency unit, known in Waltham Forest as ‘Beams’. It’s a not-for-profit, community-based organisation, with members offering services and goods such as DIY, music lessons, alternative therapies, gardening, loan of tools and equipment, computing, cooking, giving lifts, allotment vegetables, dog-walking, sewing and lots more.

RACHEL OLIVER, POSITIVE MONEY.

To deal with the big social, economic and environmental challenges we’re facing today, we need to transform our money and banking system. Positive Money is a non-for-profit research and campaign organisation. Their goal is for a money and banking system that serves a fair, democratic, and sustainable economy. Rachel Oliver is their Head of Campaigns and Organising. She works to mobilise, grow and empower their 40,000 supporters and 30 local groups around the UK. At "What is Money", Rachel will talk about where money comes from in our economy, the privileged role commercial banks play in creating new money and deciding where it's spent, and how sovereign money creation would much better serve society and a fairer, more democratic, more sustainable economy.

DAVID SHEPHERDSON, HULLCOIN (via skype)- the world's first community loyalty point. Kaini Industries was established in April 2014 as a result of a piece of research undertaken by Hull City Council that explored how the disruptive technology underpinning bitcoin could used as a local currency to support communities in Hull affected by poverty. Hullcoin is a new way to unlock the hidden value in Hull’s economy. People who engage with charities and community groups across the city of Hull can earn Hullcoin by volunteering and undertaking activities that benefit themselves. Hullcoin can then be redeemed as discount at participating retailers.