Community Exchange System

The Community Exchange System (CES) is an Internet-based trading network which allows participants to buy and sell goods and services without using a national currency. While the relatively new system can be used as an alternative to traditional currencies such as the dollar or Euro or South African rand, the Community Exchange System is a complementary currency in the sense that it functions alongside established currencies. It is international in scope. It does not have printed money or coins but uses computer technology to serve as an "online money and banking system" or alternative exchange system and as a marketplace. It is an advance from an arrangement in which either one good or service is exchanged for another good or service, or commonly called barter, since it uses a digital unit of value. While there are reports that the system is growing, in 2011 the system handles only a tiny fraction of international world commercial activity.

While money typically takes the form of a national currency such as dollar bills or euro coins, there have been other types of currencies ranging from simple IOU notes––in which one person declares a debt to a second person in a written document––to more sophisticated programs such as airline miles in which points are accumulated in a side-system as a result of purchases. And some communities, typically remote ones, have instituted what is sometimes called a community currency with paper notes such as the Totnes pound in the town of Totnes in the United Kingdom; the idea was to promote local commerce and to "keep money circulating within the town's local economy," according to one report. The advent of Internet technology has made alternative forms of exchange more viable, according to one report, as databases can keep account of credits and facilitate trading.

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