Time Banks as Transient Civic Organizations? Exploring the Dynamics of Decline

Time banks have become a popular type of civic organization constructed to facilitate egalitarian economic exchange through a community-bounded currency. Especially after the recent economic crises in Europe, the rise in the number of time banks has been accompanied by relative transience and sometimes short lifespans. We adopt a relational perspective to explore the dynamics of decline in the civic engagement of a time bank in southern Germany. Using methods of longitudinal social network analysis, we analyze the relational processes and individual trajectories of members within the emerging transaction network over a period of eight years. Rather than explaining why, we have found how relational trajectories of members through a structure of core and periphery have led to creeping decline in activity and membership. Given the repeated observation that time banks and other types of alternative economic practices are often characterized by considerable volatility and potential collapse, relational thinking and network analysis are especially suited to unpacking the underlying relational mechanisms that shape these outcomes of volatility and demise.

The Sharing Economy and Social Capital: The Fictional Expectations of Sociality in a Time Bank

This article looks at time banking ­– a system of exchange in which people trade services with one another using time instead of money as currency. Time banking is framed from a social work perspective as a social innovation that contributes to poverty alleviation and increasing inclusion. However, most such organizations fail to institutionalize as care providers and fail within the first three years. In this paper, I discuss a rare success story—a time bank in Nizhny Novgorod, the fourth largest city in Russia—which has been functioning for over 15 years and positioned itself as a non-charitable organization. I engage with sharing economy studies—a growing but ambiguous field—to explain the success of the time bank in Nizhny Novgorod. Research in the sharing economy has mostly concentrated on two extreme cases: business-to-customer operations or grassroots communities practicing radical alternatives to market exchange. The case studies have been united by an assumption that sharing economy organizations would generate social capital. However, there has been limited evidence to support this claim. In this article, I aim to test this hypothesis and explore whether the informal networks, norms of reciprocity and trust that are fostered among members of the Nizhny Novgorod time bank are the factors that explain the sustainability of this association. The study is informed by 22 in-depth interviews with the gatekeepers and members of this community. In the interviews, I paid attention to the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants and the structure of their social capital; the characteristics of the mode of exchange practiced in the community (the volume, direction, and range of services, the relatedness to professional activities and other spheres of life); their value set and worldview (egalitarianism, altruism, justice); and indicators of generalized trust. Results revealed that time bankers do not tend to create strong and sustainable relationships outside of the framework of the exchange. I put forward the following explanatory hypothesis: the calculativeness of time bankers, the market-driven valuations of ‘egalitarian’ service exchange and a unilateral attitude to the exchange are in conflict with a longing for Gemeinschaft—a community with strong bonding interdependence based on the norms of mutuality. This association failed to provide the conditions for generalized trust to emerge. The attempt to simultaneously create a tightly bonded community, but still answer the needs of the digital age resulted in a pastiche of a sharing economy platform. Beyond the case at hand, this study theorizes the rhetoric and reality of the sharing economy by summarizing the grounds for the expectations of generating social capital and explains why certain expectations could not be met.

Serving the Underserved: Microcredit As a Pathway to Commercial Banks

A large-scale microcredit expansion program—together with a credit bureau accessible to all lenders—can enable unbanked borrowers to build a credit history, facilitating their transition to commercial banks. Loan-level data from Rwanda show the program improved access to credit and reduced poverty. A sizable share of first-time borrowers switched to commercial banks, which cream-skim less risky borrowers and grant them larger, cheaper, and longer-maturity loans. Switchers have lower default risk than non-switchers and are not riskier than other bank borrowers. Switchers also obtain better loan terms from banks compared with first-time bank borrowers without a credit history.

Serving the Underserved: Microcredit as a Pathway to Commercial Banks

A large-scale microcredit expansion program—together with a credit bureau accessible to all lenders—can enable unbanked borrowers to build a credit history, facilitating their transition to commercial banks. Loan-level data from Rwanda show the program improved access to credit and reduced poverty. A sizable share of first-time borrowers switched to commercial banks, which cream-skim less risky borrowers and grant them larger, cheaper, and longer-maturity loans. Switchers have lower default risk than non-switchers and are not riskier than other bank borrowers. Switchers also obtain better loan terms from banks compared with first-time bank borrowers without a credit history.

Banking Clustering Study Based On Fuzzy C-mean and Fuzzy Gustafson Kessel

The banking sector as one of the economic drivers plays an important role in society. Over time, bank operations did not only raise funds from the public but were more complex. The development of the banking industry can be seen from the number of banks in Indonesia that have spurred the level of competition. Of course, the bank must pay attention to its health. The use of bank soundness level parameters or RGEC combined with clusters is interesting to study. By using the cluster method, banks can be classified based on the parameters of their health level. This study aims to analyze the RGEC-based bank grouping classification generated by the Fuzzy C-Means and Fuzzy Gustafson Kessel clustering analysis using financial ratio data on 80 conventional banks in Indonesia. The software used in this study is Matlab r2015b. The results showed that the FCM clustering had a smaller standard deviation than FGK so that the first cluster in the FCM showed that the banks were in good condition compared to the other clusters even though the overall condition of banks in Indonesia was good when viewed from their financial performance.

AI Combine with Wishing Tree Hole, Spitting Tree Hole and Shared Time Bank

Under the thinking of “sharing economy”, Wish Magic wants to create a platform called “shared time bank”, so that users of the platform can store their free time in the “shared time bank” platform in advance. Then, according to the precise docking of products and services as well as supply and demand, Wish Magic also carries out the “wishing tree hole” platform to effectively interact with users according to the latest news and wish list released by users, and regularly goes to poor areas to carry out relevant poverty alleviation activities, so as to provide education support for local people with educational needs and truly play the role of targeted poverty alleviation. In addition, in today’s situation of prevailing pressure, Wish Magic will also create a “spitting tree hole” platform to provide a space for everyone to spit and vent their negative energy, and provide advice for everyone in work, study, love or marriage and other aspects, and help to solve practical problems. The combination of these three platforms enable people to arrange their time reasonably, make effective use of resources, and help people improve their work efficiency and quality of life, so as to create greater economic and social benefits.

Un primordiale modello di "banca del tempo" nel progetto montessoriano di istituzione delle case dei bambini

The contribution intends to reflect on a primordial model of time bank, by the project of Montessori school, in 1907. Maria Montessori and Edoardo Talamo, director of the Istitution of Stable Assets in Rome, were convinced that hygiene was as instrument of “civilization”; care of the environment, private and public, was for Montessori the tool to convince mothers to accept to enroll children to school and to collaborate in the management of the children’s school: Montessori and teachers would take care of the physical, mental and moral children’s health and mothers would make their female skills available to the school community, collaborating with the teachers to environment’s care. Teachers and mothers were equally called to donate to each other a part of their daily time, for the well-being of the children. Time is leitmotif of Montessori method, because it is considered a valuable tool for “dilating pedagogy”.