In a C3 network, consumers, businesses and public institutions use an internal means of payment called Value Claims. Read this short explanatory text to learn how the C3 brings cheap credit to small companies.

This document is a general introduction about STRO and about our practical work. Short descriptions follow of the models we developed and the pilots in which these are tested on their viability. Some of our main innovations, such as the community currencies and the circuits of consumers and commercial partners (C3), are explained in a little more detail.

This text uses a clear example to show the beneftis of local spending. In short there is a bigger chance that your expenditure at some point in time will return to you or the company you work for as purchasing power (and thus as income) buying a local product, then it would if the same expenditure was done outside your community. In the first case the money will continue to create supply and demand in the local context, while in the second one the link between that money and the local economy is lost.

In this book we hope to make one thing very clear: poverty is not a fate. Of course, poverty has many causes, but many of these causes are in some way connected with the monetary system. How often do we think about that system? How often do we wonder if we can choose a different monetary system? Not often.