Community Currency Settlement With Legal-Currency Integration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing community currencies and point systems are not effectively integrated with legal currencies, leading to the dilution of the benefits of community currencies and potential economic revitalization, with point systems from private companies overshadowing the advantages of LETS currencies.
Innovation Solution
A settlement system that combines community currencies and legal currencies, allowing transactions using community currencies as discount rights without exchange, maintaining a zero-sum balance among members, and integrating with existing financial infrastructure for authentication and management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If community currency is used independently without integration with legal currency system, then community economic circulation is maintained, but the benefit dilution occurs and private company point systems overshadow the advantages
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the community currency system with the legal currency settlement system by integrating a community currency management server with a settlement server. The settlement terminal can simultaneously handle both community currency transactions (as discount rights) and legal currency transactions, allowing the two systems to coexist and interact without one overshadowing the other, thus preserving community currency benefits while enabling broader adaptability
2Reliability
If community currency transactions are completely separated from legal currency transactions, then community currency independence is maintained, but transaction convenience is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the transaction process into distinct community currency transaction components and legal currency transaction components. The settlement terminal separately manages community currency discount rights and legal currency payments, with independent verification processes for each. This segmentation maintains community currency independence while enabling convenient combined transactions through a unified interface
3Productivity
If point systems from private companies are widely used, then customer retention is improved, but the advantages of LETS currencies are overshadowed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a settlement server as an intermediary that mediates between private company point systems and the community currency system. The settlement terminal verifies both point system transactions and community currency transactions through a unified authentication process, ensuring that LETS currency advantages (such as no consumption tax on transactions) are preserved while still enabling customer retention benefits
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a settlement system including a settlement terminal, a settlement server, and a settlement authentication server. The settlement server is connected to a community-currency management server, the community-currency management server includes a member information saving device, a member-account transaction-history recording device, and a zero-sum checking device. The settlement terminal includes a settlement possibility inquiry device that sends a price paid in a legal currency and a consumption tax amount corresponding to the price, a transaction amount in a community currency, and identity verification information to the settlement server, a settlement making device, and a settlement-making-result notification device, and the settlement server computer includes an authentication requesting device that inquires a transaction amount of the legal currency to the settlement authentication server computer and inquires a transaction amount of the community currency to the community-currency management server computer, a settlement possibility replying device, and a transaction result processing device.