Construction Supply Chain Payments

Target 

Master Builders, Contractors and wholesale customers 

Problem

Construction company failures happen frequently due to disputes over scope of work, lack of payment visibility, delayed or missed payments and uncertainty over available liquidity. 

Solution

Programmable payments using digital escrow, plus proof of reserves. Automated payment on agreed milestones, triggered by independent construction oracles; streaming payments for time-based provision of services / materials. A stablecoin, backed by CBDC, provides collateral escrowed for payments to service providers, triggered only by agreed milestone deliverables to assure clients. 

CBDC Leverage

CBDC removes counterparty risk, provides proof of reserves and offers reassurance to industry participants about the stablecoin used. 

The Opportunity

Long supply chains create inefficiencies and risk in contractor payments. Multi-party transactions can create disputes and increased costs, plus increase the risk of failure due to working capital shortages. Programmable payments using CBDC have the potential to create system stability by reducing counterparty risk and creating transparency in the payment system, allowing contractors to verify available funds, and the conditions for payment, before commencing work. 

Pilot

The pilot demonstrated milestone-based, oracle-driven payments for a commercial bathroom renovation project. The pilot involve one builder (payee) and one wholesale customer (payer) who used a purpose-built app to coordinate the contract, the invoicing and the payment.  

Transactions used a stablecoin backed 1:1 with pilot CBDC. The stablecoin was used for cross-chain representation of the pilot CBDC. The payer acquired and deposited stablecoin in a smart contract, which was effectively digital escrow and which the payee could independently verify using zero knowledge proofs providing commercial confidentiality.  The parties agreed on contract terms and the payment schedule on-chain. An oracle feed confirmation triggered the smart contract to release stablecoin to the agreed value to the payee.  

The project included a consortium of members to test out this use case and to showcase the power of composability in blockchain projects. NotCentralised worked with Hedera, CANVAS, Zerocap and Digital Mutual to bring this solution to life.