The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, created by Microsoft’s co-founder, is known for its various charitable activities in many depressed areas of the world.
Gates has always had a very open attitude towards technological innovations in the field of payments, particularly towards cryptocurrencies.
In light of this, it is not surprising that the Foundation has decided to expand its partnership with Ripple to facilitate the sending of money to the poorest areas of the world, where there is no solid infrastructure for digital payments.
The Foundation’s Deputy Director, Miller Abel, said on Twitter that they are about to enter into a partnership with Ripple and Coil for the implementation of the Interledger protocol in order to explore new payment systems for the poor.
The goal would be to make it faster and more effective to send donations to people who need them most.
The platform used is Mojaloop, an open source software for financial services companies, regulators, government institutions and others who, as they explain, “face the challenges of interoperability and financial inclusion”.
A video describes the principles of operation: in many countries, the only widespread payment systems are banknotes or coins, while credit cards or bank transfers are not yet widely used.
This, unfortunately, creates many problems, especially with regard to the technological development of these countries, but the spread of smartphones opens a wide scope possibilities that until now did not exist.
The main obstacle to the spread of electronic payments is the fact that traditional providers have to build their own infrastructure, but today, thanks to blockchain technology, it is possible to use infrastructures that are already built and widespread.
These existing platforms enable low-cost transactions, perfect for the poorest countries.
In addition, proprietary platforms are closed, while open source platforms are open to anyone.
Mojaloop was designed in collaboration with Ripple, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided funding and support through The Level One Project, a vision for digital financial markets based on the principles of interoperability, collaboration and inclusion.
