Have you ever thought about money? Not your savings in a bank account, but the concept of money itself? It’s something we have thought about a lot at TallyMoney. In fact one of our founders, Ralph Hazell, even wrote a book about it.
The fragility of fiat currency
What’s clear is that the money we use every day isn’t designed to benefit the consumer. It’s designed to be controlled by government and central banks. That’s why it loses value through inflation, and why the value of the Pound drops suddenly following political uncertainty (BREXIT being a case in point). You don’t see it in your bank balance, but you feel it when you exchange Pounds for another local currency abroad. Looking at it objectively, money, or specifically fiat currency, is fragile and open to numerous factors that can see it lose its value.
What makes it even less ‘consumer-friendly’ is the banking system. When your money goes into a bank account it is no longer owned by you. Legally speaking, your money is owned by the bank itself. That’s why banks can lend off the back of it, or invest it. They do this under ‘fractional-reserve’ banking where banks only need to physically hold a fraction of the money it’s lending to people in cash. In fact, most money today isn’t printed, it’s digitally created when banks use deposits to offer loans. Only an estimated 8 per cent of currency globally is physical money.
Political uncertainty and its effects on currency
Banks collapse when they have loaned out too much and debtors default. It was a big contributing factor to the Global Financial Crisis. As the financial system is globally connected and interdependent, too many bad loans in one region can start a domino effect which sees financial uncertainty spread around the world. But what are the alternative mainstream options? We knew there had to be a better and fairer way for people to save and spend every day.
Money for the people by the people
We set about creating a better form of money that first and foremost benefited consumers, and gave them full control and ownership of their money. The result was TallyMoney. One of the key elements of a people-centred money is that it is independent from the control of governments and central banks. Tally is based on a self-contained monetary system that enables people to utilise a physical asset (gold) held outside of the banking system, while seamlessly working with it. This gives true independence to money, while being usable every day.
As TallyMoney holdings are held outside of the banking system there is no risk of bank collapse. Tally® gold is 100% owned and controlled by the customer, and doesn’t move without their say so. As it’s insured to the full amount, your tally is protected whatever happens. Unlike government-controlled currency like the Pound, holdings in tally don’t lose value from inflation. And as tally’s value is based on the global gold price, it doesn’t drop in value because of political uncertainty and is better insulated from economic uncertainty – it’s Brexit-proof.
It was important that to be a better alternative to fiat currency that there were no costs to use TallyMoney Account, or to exchange fiat currency into tally. There are no fees or mark-ups to convert into tally or to spend tally at home or abroad. Just a single monthly charge of 0.9% (calculated daily, charged monthly) which covers storage, security, insurance and operational costs. This equates to £0.75 in Tally per £1,000 held. Well, you could put it this way: It sets you back about as much as a cheeky little packet of crisps each month!
TallyMoney Debit Mastercard® is accepted at over 37 million locations worldwide. And as tally is gold whose value is universally understood, its potential as a worldwide mainstream alternative to local currency is huge.
In short, tally is money for the people, by the people.
