So how we'll get things going with this?
Now that I've thought this little bit more, I think there is no need to limit this only to be used with MPAs – this should be available for all assets. Anybody should be able to start a savings club with any asset they want.
FBA probably goes very well with this. It will create incentive for FBA owners to market this feature and bring lots of users for Bitshares. FBA owners recieve a percentage of the profits that a club makes. If every club member does "proof of life" and doesn't claim early, there are no profits, so in this case FBA owners don't get anything.
How fast it's possible to build a simple "proof of concept" smart contract on the blockchain? No need for anything fancy, starting a club doesn't need GUI, but investing in a club should be easy. But probably nothing more complicated than "send money to this address and you're in"? Of course we need some kind of tools for early claims and proofs of life.
In the first version is enough if there is only one kind of club. Something like: starts on the first day of month (so that every month new clubs can be created), lasts one year, 20 % fee in case of early claim, one month reserved for proof of life.
If this becomes successful and people are interested in it, we can add possibility to adjust starting day and length of the contract, percentages for early claim, etc.
This is exactly the kind of project that I want to see this year. Simple smart contract, shouldn't be too difficult to build, doesn't need any excessive infrastructure around it, concept is easy to grasp, creates profits for Bitshares by increasing transfers and helps BTS price to go up by locking funds for a long time.