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Who is David Hartley?
When you meet David Hartley, you quickly realize you're speaking to someone whose vision for the future is deeply rooted in real-world experience — and a genuine heart for people.
From civil engineering in Namibia to pioneering client accounting software in Australia, David’s life has been woven through some of the world’s most pivotal technological and political moments. Whether weathering corruption in Australia, losing businesses in the aftermath of Tiananmen Square, or moving to the Caribbean to support his wife's health journey, David has shown resilience and an unwavering belief in technology’s potential to serve humanity.
Now based in Saint Lucia, David is the founder and CEO of Pacio, a company developing Triple Entry Accounting (TEA) on the blockchain — a bold attempt to address one of the biggest silent drains on global prosperity: financial fraud and inefficiency.
What is Triple Entry Accounting (TEA) — and Why Does It Matter?
Double Entry Accounting, documented 500 years ago by Friar Luca Pacioli, revolutionized commerce by making errors easier to catch through matching debits and credits. However, it never solved a critical problem: fraud. Companies have always been able to alter or falsify records without external confirmation.
Enter Triple Entry Accounting:
- Every transaction is recorded twice (debit and credit) plus a third immutable copy, shared between the two transacting parties via blockchain technology.
- This third record is cryptographically secured and cannot be altered — providing a tamper-proof system of verification.
For the first time in human history, we have a way to make financial records immutable, transparent, and verifiable at scale — something no traditional system has achieved.
The Value for the World — and for the Caribbean
The impact of fraud and accounting deficiencies globally is staggering:
$29 trillion per year — roughly equivalent to the entire U.S. economy.
David emphasized that TEA isn’t just about cleaner ledgers — it’s about unlocking massive value currently lost to corruption, cybercrime, and inefficiency. It lays a foundation for systems like Universal Basic Income (UBI) by ensuring that large-scale financial transfers are protected against fraud.
For the Caribbean, the implications are profound:
- Increased Transparency: TEA could help governments and public institutions become more transparent and accountable.
- Better Access to Funding: With tamper-proof records, businesses can more easily prove their credibility to investors and international partners.
- Economic Resilience: As the region looks to diversify its economies, a secure digital financial infrastructure could become a magnet for innovation and investment.
The Challenges to Implementation
As promising as TEA is, adoption won't be easy.
David outlined several hurdles:
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Network Effect Problem:
- TEA is only powerful when multiple entities use it.
- Like a telephone network, a single user provides little value; mass adoption is critical.
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Resistance from the Powerful:
- Those who benefit from existing corruption have little incentive to embrace transparency.
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Digital Identity:
- TEA depends on reliable, universal digital ID systems.
- There are currently hundreds of digital ID initiatives globally, but no single standard.
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Scaling Technology:
- Blockchain systems must process millions of transactions per second affordably — far beyond current crypto platforms like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
What’s Needed for Successful Adoption
Pacio’s whitepaper outlines nine key prerequisites, including:
- Immutable blockchain records.
- Globally recognized digital IDs.
- Scalable transaction processing.
- Data standardization (so records mean the same thing everywhere).
- Privacy controls ensuring access only to authorized parties.
- Ease of use — even for micro-businesses.
Above all, a collective commitment to transparency is necessary.
The Caribbean, with its relatively small but connected economies, could become a global testbed for TEA adoption — leapfrogging older, slower financial systems.
David’s long-term vision is not just technological — it's deeply human: creating a world where wealth is more fairly distributed, poverty and corruption are diminished, and people everywhere can participate in an economy built on trust.
In short:
Triple Entry Accounting isn’t just an upgrade to our financial systems — it’s a pathway to a better, fairer world.