Page 622 - AI for Good Innovate for Impact

AI for Good Innovate for Impact

because there is no method to control and improve their spending patterns. SERA helps
not only with debt elimination but also with improvement to their finances so they can
have the opportunity to elevate their economic status.
• Reduced Inequalities. As in most countries, the poor get poorer due to limitations of
their economic mobility, and of course, the rich can get richer due to access to economic
opportunities that others can not touch. This inequality gap is widening in every country
due to systematic constraints built into our banking system and their products. SERA
provides every working adult with a new set of tools (starting with Debt Offset and Smart
Budget) to level the playing field for those who have lower incomes and poor credit.
This equitable opportunity to economically advance themselves, first with their current
debt and then onward to build their financial stability through spending improvements,
transcends across all population segments regardless of race, gender orientation,
geographical environment, economic status, or physical limitation. Using the Offset
Principle (which is the core of Debt Offset), SERA will fundamentally change the way all
banking systems work from their current FLOAT model to the PEOPLE BANKING model
to benefit the working class. This is a deep subject that needs more than just a short
description, but here is roughly how it works. In Debt Offset, SERA calculates how much
money a user would normally use in the month through their credit cards, and we call it
the Monthly Credit Transaction Amount, or MCXA. Once they earn their income, we move
the MXCA from their checking account into their CC balance, resulting in a lower daily
balance and faster reduction without extra payment. This MCXA can still be used in the
month for their normal spending from this CC balance, but the longer it stays in their CC
account, the bigger the offset (or savings) the user can benefit from it. Fundamentally, this
new Offset Method will transform the current bank’s float system, where banks use their
clients’ deposits to benefit themselves, to a new paradigm where the clients’ deposits will
be used to improve their own financial obligations first.

Partners

We are currently in talks with the following entities to maximize SERA’s exposure to empower
people of all walks of life.
• United for ALICE (unitedforalice.org): We are working to bring our innovative solution
to empower the ALICE people to achieve financial stability. Here is their description of
United Way’s ALICE initiative:

“United For ALICE is a driver of innovation, research, and action to improve life across the
country for ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) and for all. The development
of the ALICE measurements, which provide a comprehensive, unbiased picture of financial
hardship, has revealed that 41% of U.S. households cannot make ends meet has emerged.

The ALICE research quantifies and describes the number of households that are struggling
financially. From humble beginnings as a study to understand the struggles of families in one
New Jersey county, this body of research has worked to increasingly shed light on a hidden
population we now know as ALICE. Harnessing this data and research on the mismatch between
low-paying jobs and the cost of survival, ALICE partners convene, advocate, and collaborate
on solutions that promote financial stability at the local, state, and national levels.

After a decade of work, the spark ignited by the initial study has grown into a grassroots ALICE
movement across more than two-thirds of U.S. states to change the national dialogue about
financial hardship. Led by United Way of Northern New Jersey, the ALICE movement includes
United Ways, corporations, nonprofits, and foundations in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado,
Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawai‘i, Idaho, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi,

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