Very interested as a prospective lender (investor) on Populous platform. Just finished reading the latest Whitepaper, however several questions remain unanswered. Was hoping someone has already looked into this with the team:
1) According to the Whitepaper, once an auction is completed successfully, the invoice seller receives funds from the winning buyer or group. Then once the invoice seller receives payment from his customer, he deposits the money with Populous and makes payment to settle the loan. That means that the seller will be paid twice for one invoice - once by the winning buyer (group) and once by the customer. My question is what mechanism on Populous platform will exist to oblige the invoice seller to make the payments to settle the loan, and prevent him/her from double-dipping? Usually, in factoring transactions, the factor (invoice buyer) always gets paid directly by the customer precisely to avoid this potential problem (see for example step 4 of the process described here:
https://fitsmallbusiness.com/how-invoice-factoring-works/). Why is it different on Populous platform?
2) There is no mention in the Whitepaper of the verification process Populous platform will use to ensure that the invoice is valid (i.e. a real product/service has been provided and the client is happy). This is very puzzling, because invoice verification is arguably the most important part of factoring. See for example link here:
https://www.comcapfactoring.com/blog/why-are-factoring-verifications-necessary/ Does anyone have any idea what process will be used to verify the validity of invoices, if any?
3) Another question unanswered by the Whitepaper is whether the factoring on the platform will be recourse or non-recourse (
http://blog.factorfunding.com/blog/what-are-the-differences-between-recourse-and-non-recourse-factoring/)? If there will be recourse against the invoice seller in case of a disputed transaction, does Populous platform offer any mechanism to aid invoice buyers recover from sellers directly? Or rather, will invoice buyers have to pursue legal action in traditional tribunals? If there will not be any recourse against invoice seller in case of a dispute, then the invoice verification process will have to be very solid... (which goes back to question 2) above)
4) Finally, how will Populous will ensure that an invoice has not already been financed with another factor prior to being auctioned on the platform. I understand that tokenization will ensure that ay given invoice is sold only once on Populous platform, but what mechanism ensures that it has not been sold outside the platform to a third-party?
Would help a lot to have answers to these questions!
Thanks