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SNP should look into setting up Scottish national digital currency at an annual conference in Aberdeen, Scottish politician George Kerevan suggests. He is going to speak about the idea of a digital ScotPound at the conference fringe meeting.


Scottish nationalist party lost the referendum on the Scotland's independence in 2014. George Kerevan, a Scottish nationalist, Member of Parliament and member of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee shared new ideas for SNP policies with The National. He suggests that an independent Scottish currency is needed for the nation and could be set before any second independence referendum takes place in order to prove the nation's ability to sustain its own economy and payment system.

“I’m not offering an instant alternative but we do need to start thinking about one for whenever the Scottish people demand a fresh referendum – be that soon or far in the future,” the article reads.

Kerevan recognises the problems of setting up a new currency and he offers a solution: to create a parallel currency before independence is achieved.

“That might sound a weird idea but there are lots of examples of parallel currencies around today – they are useful in their own right as an anti-austerity measure,” Kerevan adds.

Bitcoin is an example of parallel currency according to Kerevan. He then suggests that digital money like bitcoin can be created at any time provided that people accept it in payment:

“There’s nothing to stop you creating a digital money provided enough folk accept it when supplying services and goods to each other. As you are not offering loans, you are not part of the regulated banking system. The very fact of creating new “cash” allows trade to take place that otherwise would not have occurred.”

Last month the New Economics Foundation (NEF) developed a bitcoin-like digital currency ScotPound which would “operate alongside pounds sterling, supporting small and medium businesses and putting money in the pockets of those currently excluded by the financial sector”. A personal fund of 250 ScotPounds would be distributed to everyone on the electoral register at the age of 16 and to spend using their mobile phone. As CoinFox reported last week, The Royal Bank of Scotland has developed its own experimental cryptocurrency and is in process of testing it.

 

Aliona Chapel