6.1 KiB
Taffii
A Member-Owned Money System
A Whitepaper & Manifesto
1. Preamble
Taffii exists because modern banking systems are built on opacity, misaligned incentives, and assumptions of user ignorance. Most people are told they "have a bank account" without being meaningfully informed about what that means, where their money resides, how it is used, or under what conditions it may become unavailable.
Taffii rejects this model.
Taffii is not a bank. It does not pretend to be one, replicate one, or replace one. Instead, Taffii is a member-owned money coordination system that operates alongside the traditional banking system, not inside it.
This document explains what Taffii is, how it works, what it deliberately refuses to do, and the principles it is built upon.
2. The Problem
Modern banking relies on three structural facts:
- Fractional reserve lending, where deposited money is reused, lent, or leveraged.
- Centralised ownership, where account holders have no stake or control in the institution.
- Asymmetric understanding, where users interact with simplified interfaces that obscure real risk and mechanics.
For many communities, participation is not optional. Salaries, benefits, rent, and commerce often require interaction with large financial institutions. Choice is constrained, and alternatives are either inaccessible, heavily regulated, or deliberately made complex.
Trust, in this context, is often not trust at all — it is dependence.
3. The Taffii Thesis
Taffii is built on a simple thesis:
If people fully understood how money systems work, many would choose something different.
Taffii does not attempt to educate users through warnings or restrictions. Instead, it encodes its philosophy directly into its architecture.
The system is designed so that:
- Money is fully backed at all times
- Ownership is explicit and shared
- Risk is bounded by design
- Power is not abstracted away
4. What Taffii Is
Taffii is:
- A private, invite-only system
- A member-owned money pool
- A software coordination layer built on top of regulated UK banks
- A ledger and reconciliation engine that tracks ownership precisely
Taffii provides a bank-like user experience without being a bank.
5. What Taffii Is Not
Taffii is explicitly not:
- A bank
- A credit union
- A lender
- An investment vehicle
- An EMI or e-money issuer
- A public financial service
Taffii does not:
- Take deposits in its own name
- Lend, invest, or rehypothecate funds
- Offer overdrafts or credit
- Provide account numbers or sort codes
- Support direct debits or salary payments
These are non-goals, not missing features.
6. Ownership Model
Every participant in Taffii is a member-owner.
Ownership means:
- Each member retains full claim over their funds
- Balances are tracked individually
- The system exists to serve its members, not extract value from them
There are no external shareholders whose incentives override those of the participants.
7. Custody & Where Money Lives
Taffii does not hold money.
All funds are stored in regulated UK bank accounts, subject to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
Taffii operates as a coordination and accounting layer, tracking which portion of pooled funds belongs to which member.
At no point does money leave the regulated banking system.
8. FSCS-Aware Account Distribution
To preserve protection and manage scale, Taffii:
- Maintains multiple underlying bank accounts
- Enforces FSCS-aware allocation
- Distributes funds using a round-robin strategy
When an account approaches protection limits, new funds are routed to the next available account.
This process is fully automated and continuously reconciled.
9. Ledger & Reconciliation
Taffii maintains an internal ledger that records:
- Member balances
- Allocation across backing accounts
- Transaction history
The ledger is continuously reconciled against actual bank balances.
If discrepancies occur:
- Automated alarms trigger
- Deposits may pause
- Manual investigation begins
Solvency is not assumed — it is verified.
10. Balance Caps
Taffii enforces a hard per-member balance cap, typically between £20,000 and £30,000.
This cap:
- Bounds operational risk
- Limits exposure per participant
- Simplifies reconciliation and auditing
The cap is a system constraint, not a usage recommendation. Members may use Taffii however they choose within this boundary.
11. Withdrawals & Liquidity
Because Taffii does not lend or reuse funds:
- Withdrawals are always covered
- No queuing or liquidity gates are required
- Funds may be aggregated across multiple backing accounts
Withdrawal coordination is performed via regulated payment APIs.
12. Cards & Spending
Taffii may offer spending cards via third-party regulated providers.
In this model:
- Cards are issued and managed by licensed program managers
- Taffii sets limits and tracks balances
- Settlement remains within regulated infrastructure
Cards extend usability without changing custody or risk assumptions.
13. Governance & Access
Taffii is invite-only.
All members are:
- Personally vetted
- Informed about how the system works
- Admitted intentionally, not virally
This constraint preserves clarity, trust, and shared understanding.
14. Philosophy
Taffii is built on the belief that:
- Transparency beats trust
- Constraints are a form of honesty
- Software should encode values, not hide them
Taffii does not attempt to replace banks.
It exists as a parallel system — a bubble attached to a larger bubble — where money is managed openly, collectively, and deliberately.
15. Closing Statement
Taffii is not an escape from the financial system.
It is a refusal to pretend the system works differently than it does.
By making ownership explicit, custody transparent, and risk bounded, Taffii offers an alternative way to coordinate money — one that assumes users are capable of understanding the mechanics of the systems they rely on.
That is not a feature.
It is the point.