Gates Foundation Partners with Ripple, Coil to Assist ‘Pro-Poor’ Systems

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is joining hands with digital payments firm Coil and Ripple Labs Inc. to implement the Interledger Protocol. This information was revealed by Miller Abel, Deputy Director and Principal Technologist of the Foundation, through a tweet dated October 17. The Foundation, however, has not made an official announcement regarding the partnership.

In addition to the implementation of Ripple’s Interledger Protocol, which is structured to link various payment ledgers and facilitate faster processing of cross-border dealings, the collaboration will also study the manner in which Mojaloop can assist “pro-poor payment systems.”

Gates Foundation launched Mojaloop, which uses Interledger technology, in October last year. Mojaloop, an open-source mobile payment platform for government regulators, financial organizations, and other fintech industry firms, is equipped to advance mobile disbursement in the developing world and bestow financial services for unbanked persons across the globe.

As per the World Bank data, in 2017 there were approximately 1.7 billion adults who lacked bank accounts. That represents approximately 30% of the world population. Most of those people reside in low and middle income emerging markets and do not have practical entrée to normal banking due to a shortage of precise identification data.

With blockchain-backed platforms, underbanked people can supposedly obtain a digital identity for banking purposes. This can be done easily using their smartphones, while biometrics will accomplish the rest.

Coil, which was established by ex-Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas, is also backed by Interledger technology. The membership based platform permits clients to monetarily assist content providers in addition to managing ads and channeling the website paywall method.