Platform Summary & Cross-Cutting Ground Truths
Balinyaar is a trust-first home-nursing marketplace in Iran. Independent, individually-verified nurses register, list configurable services with their own pricing, and pass a multi-step verification pipeline anchored on the MoH پروانه صلاحیت حرفهای (professional-competency license). Families search — filtered by city/district and same-gender caregiver preference — pick a nurse and a service variant, submit a booking request, and pay through the platform after the nurse accepts. The platform records the money as an internal escrow ledger state (not platform-held cash), the nurse performs one or more EVV-verified visits, and the platform pays the nurse weekly, after the dispute window closes, minus a platform commission. All post-booking communication runs through an admin-readable ticket system.
At launch the platform operates under a partner licensed home-nursing center (مرکز مشاوره و ارائه مراقبتهای پرستاری در منزل) — the Asanism-style model — which is the legal vehicle and the likely merchant-of-record for payments while Balinyaar's own MoH permit is in process.
The four cross-cutting ground truths
These hold across every business area and data-model domain. They are the load-bearing decisions the rest of the docs assume.
- Balinyaar cannot legally custody customer cash. Under Iranian rules a پرداختیار (payment
facilitator) is forbidden from holding deposits, running wallets, or moving money between merchants. Money always flows card → licensed PSP → Shaparak settlement → bank-registered IBANs. "Escrow" is therefore an internal ledger state over funds custodied at a licensed provider/partner bank — never a Balinyaar-owned cash balance. See escrow as a ledger and the ledger_entries entity.
- VAT is 10%, not 9% — it rose from 9% to 10% in 1403 (7% government + 3% municipal) and is
treated as a configurable rate. See Iranian payment reality §2.6 and tax, invoicing & legal.
- BNPL is full-upfront. A BNPL provider settles **one full-amount lump (net of its commission)
to the merchant-of-record**, bears 100% of customer-default risk, and owns the customer's installment repayment entirely. A BNPL order behaves in Balinyaar's books exactly like a card payment landing net-of-fee. See the full-upfront finding.
- The nurse is paid by Balinyaar, weekly, on Balinyaar's own schedule — gated on EVV
completion and a closed dispute window — regardless of how the family paid. See who pays the nurse & when and payouts.
Money is IRR Rials, always
All monetary values are in IRR (Rials), stored as BIGINT. Toman is a display concern only and is converted to/from Rials solely at an external provider's API boundary (e.g. SnappPay quotes Toman). No floats anywhere on the money path.
Glossary — the Persian terms you will keep meeting
| Term | What it is |
|---|---|
| پرداختیار (payment facilitator) | The PSP-contracted license class an MVP marketplace rides on; barred from custodying funds. |
| تسهیم (settlement-sharing) | Shaparak/provider splitting one card payment across registered IBANs — the compliant marketplace primitive. |
| Shaparak (شاپرک) | Iran's national card-payment switch; settles to registered IBANs. |
| IBAN / شِبا (Sheba) | The bank account number money settles to; must be ownership-verified for nurse payouts. |
| پروانه صلاحیت حرفهای | MoH professional-competency license — the single most important nurse credential; bundles a criminal-record screen. |
| نظام پرستاری (INO) | Iranian Nursing Organization; membership number used as a verification cross-check. |
| عدم سوء پیشینه | Criminal-record ("no record") certificate; consent-gated to the individual, no company API. |
| Shahkar (شاهکار) | Government service matching a SIM ↔ national ID (کد ملی). |
| سامانه مودیان | Iran's taxpayer / e-invoicing system (22-digit fiscal numbers). |
| اینماد / e-namad | Electronic trust symbol; de-facto mandatory to obtain an online payment gateway. |
| شبانهروزی | 24-hour / live-in care shift — the dominant elder-care shape. |
| EVV | Electronic Visit Verification — GPS + timestamped nurse check-in/out per visit. |
| BNPL | Buy-Now-Pay-Later (خرید اقساطی). |
| Asanism model | Going to market by partnering with already-licensed home-nursing centers. |
Where to go next
- Business Requirements — what the platform must do, area by area.
- Database Model — the ~54-table schema, domain by domain.
- Payments deep-dive — escrow, settlement, BNPL, integrations.
- Research & Strategy — market, risks, verification, legal, GTM.