In the 1930s in Switzerland a group of small business people got together. They had little help from the banks in enabling them to trade and so they set themselves up in a financial co-operative. They called it "Our Trading Circle" or Wirtschaftsring.

In agreeing to trade among themselves in a special way they were able to bypass the banks and created their own currency called Wir. One Wir was equal to ONe Swiss Franc (CHF).

The small beginnings soon led to growth and the Wir still survives today. They had many crises along the way and had to call upon their membership to bail them out at one stage by putting in significant amounts of real money to give them a sound financial basis.

Then they had to register as a bank - Switzerland is famous for them!
By the end of the last century they had more than 80,000 accounts and were trading in CHF billions - (about 2 CHF to the British Pound).

Basically anyone who joins the trading group has to agree to accept Wir for a minimum percentage of the value of the products when purchased by other members. This brings with it some interesting benefits. They do not allow everyone to join. Large companies may not join at all and so the benefits are available to micro, small and medium sized Swiss companies.

The benefits of having an alternative currency which is not open to multinationals to join is that you can offer a mixed price for a good or service that the big company cannot match.

Example trade

Imagine you have an item that you have to price at CHF100. You may find the big producer can undersell you and offer it for CHF90. A member of the Wir can offer it at CHF70 + WIR30. This still adds up to 100 but the buyer only has to find 70 in cash and the other 30 will be paid for by him (or her) accepting some Wir for their own products.

And it's still going!

The catalogue of members is the equivalent to a telephone directory of a town of 80,000 people and covers a huge variety of goods and services from individual musicians to builders of quite large projects. With Wir you can buy anything from a paperclip to an office building.

In keeping with other technologies the Wir card is seen in the same light as any other credit card and the Wir symbol is featured in many outlets. Many Swill People don't even realise that they are trading with an alternative currency when they use it.