11 Feb 2009

Post Office to become People's Bank?

Just a quick welcome to news that the New Economics Foundation (nef) have brought together a coalition of groups including the Communication Workers' Union, the Federation of Small Businesses and fellow think-tank Compass, to develop a proposal for a 'People's Bank' based at post office branches.

Photo: more snow pics - first of Whiteshill, second looking up to Randwick from Cashes Green, third and fourth looking across to Selsey

nef believes that the Post Office should be grown into a national banking system that delivers stable, accessible and dependable services to the public and businesses. It stands to be one of the best guarantees of underpinning local economic and community resilience, promoting financial inclusion, allowing people to invest and save with confidence and security building on a much needed and far reaching national network.

T
he Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) is asking people to submit their opinions of the future of the Post Office Network. BERR needs to hear that the future of the Post Office Network is not a matter of narrow, short-sighted measures of cost-effectiveness, but of supporting vibrant thriving communities.

T
he Government has set up an online forum in order to consult the public about their views on the future of the Post Office Network. nef are asking folk to express your support for a strong Post Office Network which strengthens local economies, improves community life supported by a People's Bank. Join the forum here.

See also local Green party comment today on the news that National Savings & Investments (NS&I) is to deprive tens of thousands of its savers of the right to deposit their savings at the Post Office - see here.

1 comment:

King of the Paupers said...

Jct: This great idea shows the Sparta effect. When visiting, your gold was deposited in the city bank for clay tokens used while in town and cashed out upon leaving. Sparta got the interest while trading went on with the clay chips.
If all bought stamps for cash, the state would get the interest while trading would go on with the stamp tokens.
Peg your local stamp currency to the Time Standard of Money (how many stamp-pounds/hour average labor) and Hours earned locally can be intertraded with other timebanks globally!
In 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights in Europe with an IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours.
U.N. Millennium Declaration UNILETS Resolution C6 to governments is for a time-based currency to restructure the global financial architecture.
See my banking systems engineering analysis at http://youtube.com/kingofthepaupers with an index of articles at http://johnturmel.com/kotp.htm