Bernard Lietaer is an international financial expert on monetary systems who has worked in an unusually wide range of roles within the financial sector for 35 years. At the Belgian central bank, he was involved in the design and implementation of the convergence mechanism (ECU) within the European Monetary System and subsequently became president of the Belgian electronic payment system. He was general manager and currency trader at the Gaia hedge fund. In 1990, *Business Week* named him the world’s top trader. He has devised various monetary systems (such as the Terra and the Saber), further developed many currencies, and advised governments, companies and charitable organisations on financial matters. He is currently a Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting professor at the Financial University in Moscow and the Sorbonne in Paris.
Lietaer has written 15 books, including *The Future of Money*, which has been translated into 18 languages. In 2012, he published (with Arnsperger, Goerner and Brunnhuber) a report for the Club of Rome entitled *Money and Sustainability – From an Outdated Financial System to a Monetary Ecosystem*.
On 4 December 2012, Margrit Kennedy and Bernard Lietaer were awarded the Swedish ‘Utstickarpris’ prize for their courageous work on monetary systems that serve people, the economy and the environment.
Bernard Lietaer died of cancer on 4 February 2019 in Hoyerhagen.
Bernard Lietaer’s posthumous website: www.bernard-lietaer.org
Selected publications:
- The Money of the Future. Munich: Riemann, October 1999.
- The Mystery of Money: The Meaning and Function of a Taboo. Munich: Riemann, April 2000.
- Regional Currencies: New Paths to Sustainable Prosperity. With Prof. Dr Margrit Kennedy. Munich: Riemann, March 2004.
- The World of Money: The Enlightenment Book. Würzburg: Arena, 2001.
- Only Taxes Confer Value, TAZ, interview with Eric Bonse, 5 June 2012.
- Alternative Money to Combat the Crisis, Swiss Television, 26 December 2011.
- Ways to Overcome Systemic Banking Crises, with Dr Robert Ulanowicz and Dr Sally Goerner. Academic paper for the World Academy of Arts and Sciences (WAAS), Hyderabad, India, 2008.
- Money and Sustainability: The missing Link. Report by the Club of Rome with Christian Arnsperger, Sally Goerner and Stefan Brunnhuber, Europa Verlag, Berlin, 2013 (original: *Money and Sustainability*, 2012)
Publications by Bernard Lietaer on monneta.org:
- ‘Money for the Future – Ways out of Cyclical Economic Crises’
(2009 – video, 50 mins)
- Video interview from 2016 (video, 65 mins)