"The clearing house allows a trade dollar for every country to be valued against the normal currency of that country; for example one American trade dollar equals 76 Australian cents," he said.

Bartercard transactions mirror credit cards where members buy and sell products and services; however, the exchange medium is a trade dollar. Businesses are able to offset cash expenses by using their own goods and services as payment via the Bartercard network, therefore only paying replacement product costs.

Van said in linking Bartercard's separated international trade offices into a global network it would need 95 percent of its trading to occur via electronic media such as smartcards and Eftpos which will require infrastructure upgrades.

"To allow international trading, software had to be improved," he said. "We implemented mobile phone and SMS card reader gateways and hardware similar to what banks use, all of which have been deployed in line with smartcard standards. We see smartcard technology as the vehicle behind supplying Bartercard currency globally."

He said for Bartercard to acquire the technology it would need to butter up the banks by increasing the value of the trade market.