People's Financial Markets

​Working people have localized insights and capital which could benefit markets for labor, goods or services. Enabling them to profit from this at a truly granular level requires new data and financial instruments. Those are only viable when financial markets are one part of a system of online exchanges encompassing thousands of sectors across the base of any economy. Anyone can then underwrite, invest, lend, hedge, factor or perform other regulated functions by setting up a fund to interact in those markets.

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​Imagine, as example, a babysitter noticing a shortage of qualified childcare workers within two miles of her home that is pushing up pay rates. She also notes an over-supply of eldercare workers locally. She has $1,000 and wishes to invest in additional certification for 5 workers with senior care qualifications so they can also offer childcare. In return, her beneficiaries must agree to 30% of their earnings uplift being paid to her for three months. POEMs can find eligible beneficiaries, offer, manage responses, enforce her conditions, audit and report.

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Modular "unifunds" are the building blocks of this model. Any POEMs user can create a unifund for any purpose, subject to legal controls. Each unifund (a) takes in digital cash from users who the creator allows to deposit (b) deploys the money to recipients for the fund's defined purpose, typically in return for a charge set by the creator (c) pays out earnings to its depositors. Thus, a unifund might be instigated to "Lend sums up to $100 for 2 weeks or less at 2% but only to bricklayers who previously repaid 25 or more such loans on time".

 

Able to manage millions of competing unifunds, POEMs (Public Official E-Markets) can usefully facilitate funds-of-funds and aftermarkets. Where a unifund's creator is willing, this could attract institutional money, with standardized reporting of any unifund's performance available for comparisons.

 

Investment in workers' development is one option for anyone creating a unifund. Readers interested only in labor markets should switch to our paper Human Capital as an Asset Class.