Twitter Nowhere in Europe is the financial crisis more pronounced than in Greece. The country is buried under huge debt. But in one city in the center of the country, residents have taken matters into their own hands.
In Volos, locals have formed an alternative currency to the Euro. It’s called the TEM, as the BBC reports:
It works as an exchange system. If you have goods or services to offer, you gain credit, with one euro equivalent to one TEM.
You can then use your “savings” to buy whatever else is being offered through the network, leading to some rather original exchanges of goods.
It’s not likely to displace the euro, but it is giving people who’ve seen their savings decimated by the crisis some hope. The BBC’s Mark Lowen went to Volos to see how the new system is working.
