WIR Bank

The Swiss WIR Bank (abbreviation of Wirtschaftsring or ’business circle’ Bank) was founded in 1934 as business was decimated during the interwar financial crisis. Today, the WIR Bank has a ten-figure turnover and over 60,000 members – mostly SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) in construction, hospitality, manufacturing and retail.

The bank provides these members with credit at virtually zero interest, marketing opportunities and a clearing system, through which goods and services can be exchanged using the bank’s own currency: the WIR franc, which is pegged at par but not redeemable with regular Swiss francs.

Shortages of national currency thus need not affect actual economic activity, with the WIR Bank having a countercyclical effect – that is, expanding during recessions and contracting during booms. This allows SMEs to survive and even prosper during times of uncertainty in the mainstream cash economy.

Some of the most commonly cited examples of successful currency schemes, like the ‘miracle of Wörgl’ and the WIR Bank in Switzerland, were founded in the first half of the 20th century and still inspire currency practitioners all around the world.

The WIR Bank in particular, a business-to-business currency operated as a co-operative and supporting the SME sector, is often mentioned as a successful enterprise standing at the intersection of economic and social purposes. Its 80-plus years of operation and adaptation provide inspiration and encouragement to current currency designers; and it is in the lineages of such successful systems, past and present, that lessons can be learned and new technologies and ideas more readily embraced.