[2] The Cincinnati Time Store experiment in use of labor as a medium of exchange antedated similar European efforts by two decades.

[3] The National Equitable Labour Exchange was founded by Robert Owen, a Welsh socialist and labor reformer in London, England, in 1832.

"[7] Teruko Mizushima (1920-1996) was a Japanese housewife, author, inventor, social commentator, and activist credited with creating the world's first time bank in 1973.

While the Japanese population was suffering immense material shortages,[14] Mizushima offered her sewing skills in exchange for fresh vegetables.

[8] The political activist and philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, after criticizing the incoherency of capitalist, Leninist, and Trotskyist justifications of wage differentials in his 1949 Socialisme ou Barbarie text translated as “The Relations of Production in Russia” in the first volume of his Political and Social Writings,[19] responding to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, advocated that workers “proclaim the abolition of work norms and instaurate full equality of wages and salaries” in his 1957 Socialisme ou Barbarie text translated as "On the Content of Socialism, II".

In the 1990s the movement took off in the US, with Dr Edgar Cahn pioneering it there, and in the United Kingdom, with Martin Simon from Timebanking UK and David Boyle, who brought in the London-based New Economics Foundation (Nef).

[27] The first British time bank opened in 1998 in Stroud, and a national charity and membership organisation, Timebanking UK, started in 2002.

Way back, years ago, it had a lot of community spirit, but now you see that in some areas, people won't even go to the chap next door for some sugar ... that's what I think the project's doing, trying to bring that back, that community sense ...[37]In 2017 Nimses offered a concept of a time-based currency Nim.

Time dollars are a tax-exempt complementary currency[40] used as a means of providing mutual credit in TimeBanking.

[45][46] TimeBanks also have a significant presence in Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, Senegal, Argentina, Israel, Greece, and Spain.

[47][48][49] TimeBanks have been used to reduce recidivism rates with diversionary programs for first-time juvenile offenders; facilitate re-entry of for ex-convicts; deliver health care, job training and social services in public housing complexes; facilitate substance abuse recovery; prevent institutionalization of severely disabled children through parental support networks; provide transportation for homebound seniors in rural areas; deliver elder care, community health services and hospice care; and foster women's rights initiatives in Senegal.

Timebanking is primarily used to provide incentives and rewards for work such as mentoring children, caring for the elderly, being neighborly—work usually done on a volunteer basis—which a pure market system devalues.

Communities, therefore, use time banking as a tool to forge stronger intra-community connections, a process known as "building social capital".

[57] By 1990, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation had invested US$1.2 million to pilot time banking in the context of senior care.

A Timebank can theoretically be as simple as a pad of paper, but the system was originally intended to take advantage of computer databases for record keeping.

[34] Some Timebanks employ a paid coordinator to keep track of transactions and to match requests for services with those who can provide them.

[64] The time credit is the fundamental unit of exchange in a timebank, equal to one hour of a person's labor.

Some criticisms of timebanking have focused on the time credit's inadequacies as a form of currency and as a market information mechanism[further explanation needed].

Frank Fisher of MIT predicted in the 1980s that such a currency "would lead to the kind of distortion of market forces which had crippled Russia's economy.

"[67] She also notes that there is no guarantee that every person's needs will be provided for by a timebank by dint of the fact that the supply of certain skills may be lacking in a community.

While some member-run TimeBanks with relatively low overhead costs do exist,[62] others pay a staff to keep the organization running.

[70][71] Since 2015 TimeRepublik has been promoting Time Banking within local governments, municipalities, universities, and large companies.

Elderplan was a social HMO which incorporated timebanking as a way to promote active, engaged lifestyles for its older members.

"[78] In 2004, Dr. Gill Seyfang published a study in the Community Development Journal about the effects of a timebank located in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, Scotland, "an inner-city estate characterized by high levels of deprivation, poverty, unemployment, poor health and low educational attainment.

"[79] The Gorbals Timebank is run by a local charity with the intent to combat the social ills that face the region.

The initiative was conceived in September 2015 at a local Zeitgeist meeting, part of the international sustainability movement.

[82] BTF works from a Facebook group that has more than 20,000 members, and exchanges are counted in a spreadsheet shared with users.

Spice works across health and social care, housing, community development and education, supporting organisations and services to use Time Credits to achieve their outcomes.