(Excuse the sound quality on this interview - the phone line was a bit dodgy!)
In this interview with Bryan Innes from Living Economies we explore what’s wrong with the banking system and why there’s never enough money. Bryan shares with me a brilliant idea he developed called “Savings Pools”, which enable small groups of people to pool their resources and make loans to each other. It functions a bit like a very small community bank, but nobody pays interest.
Bryan introduced savings pools to Aotearoa about 12 years ago and since then all kinds of people have used them to get out of debt, start businesses, buy houses and lots of other things.
Bryan’s next dream is to set up a local interest-free community bank in the Coromandel where he lives and to figure out how to do the same around the country.
He has recently been enthralled by the story of Dave Fishwick, a UK self-made millionaire who started his own community bank in the small town of Burnley to support local businesses hit by the recession. (Dave’s inspiring story was made into this film and also this brilliant documentary TV series, which is so good, it made me cry).
When we spoke on the phone, Bryan shared a quote with me from one of his permaculture heroes. It went something like: “Find out what’s not illegal and do that.” I think that captures Bryan’s approach to life - when you come across a barrier, don’t bash your head against it - figure out a clever way around - and when you’ve figured it out take people with you.
With savings pools, Bryan has discovered a legal way for ordinary people to save and access money, without having to go through mainstream banks with all their fees and interest. His own life has been a study of how to live well with as little waste as possible. In this interview we only touched the surface of the topics I wanted to talk about, which include land trusts, cooperatives and the history of money.
The key message I got from my conversation with Bryan was that we have to learn to work together - to behave cooperatively. We’re in this bizarre position in our society where most of our basic human needs are met through these large-scale impersonal mechanisms like supermarkets, banks, governments and corporations. That means we don’t need to rely on each other anymore. That’s never been the case before in human history and it makes us incredibly vulnerable, when those large mechanisms start to falter.
When Bryan told me how savings pools work, I was struck by the emotional and social intelligence required to make them work. They require a group of people to get together, talk openly about personal finances and make decisions as to whether to loan money to each other. It sounds potentially awkward and uncomfortable and I think that might frighten a lot of people off.
But I think that exact feeling of awkward discomfort marks the way forward.
I think doing practical things with people is hard! But I agree with Bryan, that it’s the most important skill we need to learn as humans to evolve and survive the challenges we face.
Savings pools and a banking revolution