The way time banks have developed on both sides of the Atlantic has been to shift away from the free-standing infrastructure that enables reciprocal and informal volunteering, and towards a technique, based mainly in public services, that is able to measure and reward the effort people put in to make their neighbourhood work. Time banks, in other words, are not so much a rival form of volunteering, but a social glue that can draw together local projects and help them to reach the groups that never normally take part. It can be said to build social capital: the resources and connections as a society. Research by the University of East Anglia suggests that time banks are uniquely able to access support from some of Time banks are a social glue that can draw together local projects and help them to reach the groups that never normally take part the hardest-to-reach groups in society.