Howdie, On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 04:55:41PM -0400, Stanley Brinkerhoff wrote: > Has anyone developed; or has any area implemented; a local > "debit card" system for a town/geographical area? Something simple where > individuals could put cash onto cards (online, or even at a local business) > and > spend locally with little to no processing fees? Right now a local vendor > subsodizes the creditcard at 1-5% -- such a system could charge an equal > overhead while guaranteeing local businesses they are "paying" for local > business, rather than sending 1-5% to a creditcard processor. Such a system > could even be piggybacked to process a vendors normal creditcard transactions > such that they could process local cards, and as a failback, it would push the > transaction out to their merchant.
Saint Michael's and UVM (and maybe Champlain too?) have something like this for students. It charges to their on-campus food accounts, whatever those are called. UVM's program is called Cat $cratch. Maybe that's a starting point for your research? -Forest -- Forest Bond http://www.alittletooquiet.net http://www.pytagsfs.org
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