In Australia the law for voucher redemption validity period has been formally defined as 3 years (up from 1 year), with a few exemptions.

The 3-year rule does not apply to gift cards that are: • able to be reloaded or topped up • supplied at a genuine discount. For example, $60 card for a massage valued at $100. • part of an employee reward scheme • part of a customer loyalty program • second-hand gift cards https://consumer.gov.au/new-gift-card-laws

Pre-paid bookings & tickets with cancelation & refund policies are widely used with in a familiar range for practices & consumer expectations. From a legal compliance perspective, to protect consumers, a “reasonable” expectation is considered fair.

We don’t as yet have as many familiar variables & as much complexity for pre-paid discount vouchers. The familiar voucher type is valid immediately. Some require an account or require an activation, while others don’t, often physical cards. Physical vouchers can be easily transferred until an activation to a specific customer account. Some allow voucher amounts to be transferred between customer accounts.

(1) I’m interested in pre-paid vouchers purchased in bulk for a discount & transferable between customer accounts. A single voucher value (unit) might be defined by an average “casual” spend. Bulk could be set at several scales, multiple units. An upper limit may be defined, and be a multiple of what a loyal repeat customer spends in a 12 months period. I suggest all purchases and transfers be done with customer accounts, rather than physical bearer receipt cards, papers or coins. Auditing & accounting is key to understanding supply & demand, risk & liabilities.

(2A) Another voucher type could act more like a longer term crowd sourced loan. The voucher is redeemed with the provider but only in specific years, plus 2 years, for a total 3 years. With the longer term discounted voucher, a steep decay schedule could apply after the standard time frame.

For comparison, we see various types of longer term (more than 1 year) customer subscription contracts. Suppliers to long term business customers are similar. Future payments expected from subscriptions and supply contracts (for an agreed term & a discounted price) are considered account receivables, and used for invoice finance to manage cash flow. Pre-payment of subscriptions & contracts, offered at a discount price to the customer is an alternative funding source to industry based invoice finance (factoring & discounts) from lending platforms or institutions.

(2B) Community sourced lending can help local suppliers, waiting for their reliable account receivables. Funds sourced from an aggregated fund is also very helpful - to the businesses & community members earning some interest. The decentralised version is formed between each supplier & their customers. The decentralised version could be supported by a common platform, which could provide account auditing, risk assessment and also host the common local lending fund. The two versions can be complementary.

(3A) With the pre-paid vouchers, short & long term, a shared accounting platform, a next step is assessing the potential for crowd sourced equity funding. This can be complementary in a hybrid business model. An existing operating business could combine the development of a circulating supply of pre-paid vouchers and gradually introducing community equity, both scheduled to grow over several years.

(3B) New businesses could be formed with known people, familiar to the community, with a history in the platform. Customer pledges as pre-paid vouchers and crowd-sourced equity could be the startup funding.

The three stages are the basis of the proposals: Co-here Locality Tokens & TenancyOS. They are also described as a process for developing Universal Basic Assets - stakeholder approach.

Thanks for reading - feedback & collab welcomed. More info at hubway.net

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