Of course, bartering was never really gone, there were just areas where it was less accepted in these modern times. One of my first "real" jobs, I worked for a company that, among other things, did a lot of menu printing for restaurants. The boos had accepted restaurant credit as part of the payment for a number of these places, which meant getting invited out to dinner with the boss was pretty fun. Even then, though I did wonder how employees were getting paid salaries if the business was accepting such payment, so it isn't a terrible surprise that, well, it turned out not everyone was getting paid, and the business ended up being sold.
Apparently, it has been suggested that in Italy banks could accept more goods as collateral (apparently cheese is already common, they are considering also accepting wine and ham). Bank vaults could turn into high tech food and wine storage. Just think of the holiday parties.