The Anticrisis Settlement and Commodity Centre (ASCC) was launched in October 2008 as a response to the credit crisis and global recession. ASCC provides a computer-based system of multiparty countertrade (or barter), backed by a physical worldwide network of Regional Centres. It supplies manufacturers all over the world facing demand shortfall and limited access to credit funding with an opportunity to offer their unsold goods in exchange for raw materials and cash. The system connects registered companies with potential trading partners anywhere in the world, creating "chains" of potential transactions in near real time.