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Dear Sir, Madam,
We are pleased to announce that after years of hard work Cyclos version 3.6 has been released. The Cyclos project, which started in 2003, now offers a complete on-line banking system with additional modules such as e-commerce, mobile (SMS) banking and communication tools.
The Cyclos platform permits a de-centralization of banking services that can stimulate local trade and sustainable development. Cyclos is published under the GPL (open source) license, which means that it can be downloaded for free and used at no cost.
The main goal of Cyclos is to contribute to the international movement of community and complementary currencies by offering free high-end technological solutions. The current crisis has proven the relevancy and urgency of the search for innovative forms of financial services.
As Cyclos aims to make an important contribution to this field of work, we would greatly appreciate if you can forward this mailing to persons and organisations that could benefit from this new version of Cyclos. Together we can make a difference!
For more information please have a look at the newsletter below.
Kind regards,
The Cyclos team.
www.cyclos.org
www.socialtrade.org
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The Cyclos project
Cyclos Open Source software is created by the Social TRade Organizations (STRO). STRO has been working for two decades on a broad range of instruments and approaches that can support private or public initiatives to make money work even in conditions of a semi-permanent economic depression. Through research STRO has developed and tested economical models in pilot projects world wide. To support these models STRO started the Cyclos project in 2003. Cyclos is being published Open Source to allow other initiatives to benefit from the efforts of STRO.
Cyclos offers a complete on-line banking platform with additional community modules such as an e-commerce platform, a card module and a messaging and notification system. In 2005 the first stable version of Cyclos was released and published open source. A project site www.cyclos.org, user forum, and 'wiki' (documentation) site were launched and an active community was formed around the Cyclos software. Over the years Cyclos has become the standard for open source 'home-banking' software. So far, more than 100 organisations and financial institutions have adopted Cyclos as their payment platform. Ten languages are currently supported and volunteers work hard to make more languages available soon.
In December 2011, STRO launched the latest version of Cyclos (3.6). This version has many new features and improvements such as a better layout, improved POS (Point Of Sale) module, support for credit/debit cards, a mobile (SMS) banking module and better scalability. The new mobile banking module opens opportunities to address new sectors, such as remittances, consumer loyalty programs, mobile shops, cash-in cash-out services, taxi payments, campus payment systems, prepaid cards, and low cost ATM's.
Feature list
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On-line (home) banking
- Dashboard page with status overview, quick access and message board
- Complete account summary / history (supports print and export)
- Payments (quick payment, installments, scheduled and authorizations)
- Fees & taxes (contribution, transaction fee, demurrage and interest)
- Send & manage invoices
- Loans with possible loan group management for micro finance projects
- Account operators (a user can create operators and assign permissions)
- Personal alerts & notifications
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E-commerce
- Market place (offers & wants)
- Alerts for advertisement matching personal interests
- Member directory
- Messaging module
- Brokering / agents module
- Business referrals and transaction qualifications
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Mobile Banking
- Sign-up by SMS
- Simple payment (to other users or administration)
- Payment request (two-way payment)
- Retrieve account information (optional browse through pages)
- Notifications & alerts (personal and general alerts and notifications)
- SMS mailings (from administration and agents)
- Bank and Telecom provider independent
- Custom SMS operations (add new operations)
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POS (Point of Sale) / Cards
- Debit / credit card support
- Security options: PIN, security card code, OTP (one time password)
- On-line card management (activate/cancel/block card and reset/block PIN)
- POS (Point Of Sale) cash-in cash-out payments
- Print daily transaction overview on POS
- Manage POS devices on-line (activate, deactivate and block)
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System features
- Account & user management
- Import tools (users and advertisements)
- Content management (translations, pages, images and styles)
- System alerts & logging
- Reports & Statistics
- System tasks (e.g. set system offline and indexing)
- Easy maintenance (all data stored in database and automatic upgrades)
- Strong security (bank level security implementation)
- Programming interface for communication with 3rd party software
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Time for economic innovations
One of the key features of Cyclos is its dynamic structure that supports different economic models, which can be adapted and extended according to the needs of the local economic reality.
The current economic and financial crisis has made a lot of people aware that the current monetary system does not properly perform its function of organising the economy along desirable standards. Many people decided not to wait for political solutions. Communities and organisations started to look for financial innovations, based on the local economic reality of their community, region or country. Many of them discovered Cyclos as an effective tool to support their efforts.
Cyclos is developed and tested in Latin America and now offers the know-how and technology that can help the Western world to face the crisis. Cyclos is used in a wide variety of communities, from very small and socially oriented to business communities.
Some examples of Cyclos users are:
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A network of small businesses in Greece using their own currency to stimulate local trade
(see article in The New York Times); |
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Regio-money in Switzerland (see their website); |
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Trading network in El Salvador, provides cheap loans to small companies (see their website); * |
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Transition Town currencies in the UK (see article in the Guardian); * |
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In Uruguay the government, local authorities, the cooperative movement and private market parties will use Cyclos to realise cheaper credits for small businesses, to stimulate a more effective monetary circulation and to support for the formalisation of informal businesses. * |
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These projects also use SMS banking. |
Monetary tools available in Cyclos
Cyclos also offers a set of monetary tools that allow local communities and regions to stimulate their economy and reinforce their social structures. Some examples are mentioned below.
Buy local tools
In Cyclos it is possible to set bonuses and maluses on certain transactions. A bonus can be used to reward an individual that decides to buy locally. At the same time a malus can be charged on people that decided to spend outside their community. Therefore, more money is spent locally, more income is earned locally, which in turn is spent locally again (increasing the local multiplier and stimulating the local economy). This can, of course, disturb the process of local and national specialisation, on the other hand it can help areas to regain their competitiveness.
Demurrage
In times of economic crisis households and firms are afraid to invest and consume (increasing their real money balances). Therefore, central banks increase the money supply to lower the interest rates with the purpose to stimulate investments and consumption. This provokes inflation, that will force people to spend or invest (hold lower real money balances). The big risk of this policy is that when inflation sets in it is often very difficult to stop it. A demurrage, a small tax on the money that households and firms hold, will stimulate people to invest or consume their money (because if they do not do this they will have to pay more tax).
Contrary to inflation this demurrage can be 'switched off' and cannot get out of control. The demurrage creates an income that should provide opportunities for the common good of a community, for instance.
Together with a malus a demurrage is an interesting tool to stimulate regional economies.This approach was advocated by the famous US economist Irving Fisher as an answer to the crisis in the 1930s in his book Stamp scrip. Later, it was also praised by John Maynard Keynes in 'The General Theory' (Keynes 1953, p. 355). Today, Information Technology has created a good opportunity to introduce a similar approach.
Commercial capital for small businesses
Cyclos is permanently introducing new innovations thanks to strong links with STRO projects and partners. Presently, the programmers are working on developments that might become a standard in tomorrow's means of payment. The Cyclos team succeeded in creating a tool that can trace monetary flows using the 'age' of money, and keeping track of how many times it has circulated.
This creates the opportunity to make the means of payment a lot more effective than normal money. It allows to reduce the interests costs for small companies drastically. It can also help governments to manage their expenditures in such a way that it guarantees that 'money' circulates long enough internally until the money becomes externally available.
How can I support?
Our ambition is to keep Cyclos an innovative and state of the art product. Evidently, the development of Cyclos has its costs. STRO is a non profit organisation and therefore we depend largely on donations. If you want to support Cyclos financially you can contact us or donate directly.
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