Starter Kit. Idea 463 of 500. Cluster 24
An escrow service for buyers abroad: the money is held until the goods arrive or the work is confirmed done
The mechanism, from the book
The one thing. A country where people do not expect the rules to hold cannot build anything else, and proof can be manufactured by private people, one published record at a time.
The first step
Find one Sri Lankan abroad who is paying somebody at home for work they cannot see finished: a roof repair, a wall, a plot cleared. Offer to hold the payment in a separate account under a short written agreement both sides sign, and release it only when the buyer confirms, with photographs, that the work is done. Charge a small fee. The proof is one completed job where both sides say they would use you again.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan abroad paying for building work or goods at home that they cannot inspect, who pays a fee so the money moves only when the work is confirmed done.
- What leaves today
- Sri Lankans abroad hold back money for work and goods at home because they have been let down before; held money lets the job go ahead and be paid on the island.
Ask first
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask how a business that holds other people's money until a job is confirmed done should be registered.
- Inland Revenue Department. Ask how money held for a buyer abroad is recorded, and what is taxed as your fee.
Check before you spend
Whether holding a buyer's money for a fee needs a licence or a bank's involvement, and that the agreement says plainly who confirms the work is done.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a buyer abroad lose now when paid-for work is never finished?
- What fee would both sides accept on one job?
- How many jobs a month would one builder or workshop send you?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lankans abroad. Chapter Eight
"No discount for home. A premium for the risk."
Buyers abroad pay extra for risk they cannot see; holding the money takes the risk away.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.