
The Financial Service started in the eighties as an attempt to do away with "money circulation" in Auroville by keeping accounts of the cash holdings of Aurovilians. Since then, nearly all internal transactions between units and Aurovilians are done through electronic transfers using these accounts. The Financial Service is the shorthand name that Aurovilians use for the Auroville Maintenance Fund, but they are actually identical.
Auroville Maintenance Fund (AVMF), which incorporates the City Services, is Auroville’s major fund concerned with internally generated and
distributed money, as opposed to donations from outside (which are handled by
Auroville Unity Fund). The administrative aim is to collect
monthly contributions from Auroville businesses or commercial units, projects, guest houses and
individuals, and process the distribution of these, mainly through the City
Services, which disburses monthly payments according to budgetary needs of each service unit.