Van Arkel is instigator and CEO of the Social Trade Organisation, which he developed into one of the world’s most prominent organisations on complementary currencies and financial innovations using IT-based networks. The governor of England’s Central Bank, Mervyn King, predicted that in the coming years Central Bank issued money will be replaced by values exchanged through the internet. It is in this progressive field that the Social Trade Organisation is active in research, development and practice.
Van Arkel is a generalist both in his education (ranging form Social Sciences to Geography) as in his publications that range from environmental topics in the 1970s to economy, money and philosophy from 1980 onwards. He inspired the development of Cyclos, which is presently the world’s premier open source software for exchange networks.
He developed the C3 method and several of its innovations, presently in use in several places in Latin America. In Uruguay a dual currency is being implemented, becoming the world’s first digital non-monetary internet based system that can provide most of the functions of money, including payment of taxes, pensions, gas, electricity etc.
Van Arkel has been involved in the development of interest-free financial products and was a speaker on the Fifth International Conference on Islamic Economics and Finance in Bahrein.
Furthermore, he has been a speaker on many occasions in several European and Latin American countries and presented workshops on monetary items on universities throughout the world.