ETCH

What is ETCH

PAYMENT disputes are a common source of construction industry conflict. Disputes can have a ripple impact — increasing costs, delaying completion and reducing profits. Etch solves this problem with "smart contract" blockchain technology and IoT beacons. Etch provides a payment infrastructure that we believe will increase construction industry efficiency, reduce conflicts and increase profits for participants.

We begin with a brief discussion of the construction payment process. We then describe how Etch facilitates real-time employee payments based on presence at a job-site. We next describe an industry specific "stable coin" tied to escrowed fiat currency, which allows for real-time payments but minimizes crypto-currency exchange risk. We conclude with a discussion of future plans for performance based construction contract payments.

Our Solution

Etch is a shared financial ledger for the construction industry. Because construction payments are so complex, our first step in automating these is with paying employees.

Etch is solving key problems associated with construction contract payments. We begin with presence based payment automation and describe how our system can be used to automate certain performance based functionality. Etch requires no special hardware (except a smart phone and Wifi or an iBeacon) and the system is implementable globally. It is customisable and it has no language or national restrictions.

The construction industry contributes more than 110 billion, or 7 percent, per year to UK GDP. [47]. Our solution can scale to reduce payment friction in this massive and important industry sector and provide important services to employers and employees. Etch can also be extended to apply to any employment relationship that relies upon time based payments.