Barcelona and Santa Coloma to introduce own local currency in 2017
Tuesday, November 15, 2016 @ 10:47 PM
BARCELONA will have its own 'virtual currency' by next year, despite the Bank of Spain warning the move is 'ill-advised'.
From January 1, 2017, the town of Santa Coloma de Gramenet will accept its own local currency in 108 shops, restaurants and other business premises.
And the so-called 'social currency' will be in operation in the Eix Besòs cluster – the Nou Barris, Sant Andreu and Sant Martí neighbourhoods of Barcelona city – from the same date.
By the year 2019, the whole of the metropolitan area will accept the local money.
Physical coins and notes will not be minted, since payment is entirely electronic – via mobile phones and tablets – and Barcelona will be one of 4,000 cities worldwide to use its own currency.
Bristol, UK, was the flagship city for Europe.
Fernando Restoy of the Bank of Spain said last year that introducing a uniquely-municipal form of money was 'impossible and unacceptable' in response to Barcelona mayoress Ada Colau's election pledge.
The currency in Santa Coloma is not the same as the one that will be in circulation in Barcelona, and the town's mayoress Núria Parlon has called for residents to give it a name.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com