The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced plans to expand its partnership with the San Francisco-based blockchain startup Ripple. The new move aims at connecting unbanked individuals with payment service providers in third world countries. According to a report by the World Bank, approximately 2 billion people worldwide do not have a bank account or access to financial institutions.
According to Miller Abel, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation deputy director, the foundation is now collaborating with Ripple and Coil (Web Monetization Platform) to create a quick and efficient way to send donations directly to needy people in the developing economies.
During the Swell Conference, Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse unveiled xRapid, a solution that allows cross-border payments between banks. The system is apparently faster and cheaper than SWIFT. Three companies have started utilizing the solution. Garlinghouse is also very confident that many financial institutions will be using Ripple by the end of 2019.
Gates Foundation Partnership
The Gates Foundation is a non-profit organization XRP that provides donations to less privileged individuals across the globe. The organization belongs to Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates.
In 2017, the foundation partnered with Ripple, a blockchain startup behind the cryptocurrency XRP. The goal of the partnership was to assist unbanked people in developing nations. The foundation released an app called Mojaloop in 2017. The app built on top of Ripple’s blockchain to enable financial institutions and payment providers to serve unbanked people. Other parties that contributed to the development of Mojaloop include ModusBox, Crosslake Technologies, and Software Group.
The application uses the InterLedger Protocol (ILP). The protocol is highly customization. It was designed to allow financial institutions, network operators and countries to speedily develop their own payment platforms.
It is worth noting that it was Satoshi’s original vision to create a medium of exchange for everyone in the world, including the unbanked population.