Tangbunia Bank

The Tangbunia Bank (widely misreported as Tari Bunia) is a bank run by the Turaga indigenous movement on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu. It is notable for dealing in items of customary wealth such as hand-woven mats, shells or pig tusks rather than Western currency. Accounts at the bank are reckoned in livatu, a unit equivalent to the value of one fully curved boar's tusk.^[1]

The Tangbunia Bank has fourteen branches throughout the island, with its headquarters at Lavatmanggemu. The bank's manager is Chief . It was set up in accordance with the national government's support for the indigenous customary economy, in a country where a majority of the population does not participate extensively in a monetary economy. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the bank is similar to other banks in that it has "accounts, reserves, cheque books and tight security".^[2]

The bank is named after the giant baskets in which valuables were traditionally stored.^[3]

Record-keeping at the Tangbunia bank is done using Avoiuli, a local writing system devised by .

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