Blockchain technology will eventually lead to many different types of innovation. Especially in the financial sector, there is plenty of room for improvement. Populous is one of the higher-valued blockchain projects listed on CoinMarketCap.com. Its team focuses on invoice discounting for the blockchain era. Moreover, they aim to rebuild invoice financing from the ground up. It’s a very noble and ambitious goal, but one that will not be easy to achieve.

Populous in a Nutshell

Embracing blockchain technology in the financial sector is nothing new under the sun. In fact, various projects and companies hope to make a meaningful impact in this area. Populous positions itself as a P2P invoice finance platform with global ambitions. More specifically, the project is a global invoice trading platform built on top of distributed ledger technology. In its current form, invoice finance is a very fractured and limited market with no global reach. Populous aims to change that in the coming years.

Under the Hood

It is easy to put the words “invoice trading” and “blockchain” together. Creating a platform which actually provides an innovative service is something else entirely. Populous aims to leverage the blockchain and its security, transparency, and speed. Moreover, the project will provide smart contract technology, stablecoins, and much more. Whether or not that is enough to disrupt the traditional invoice financing model remains to be seen. Removing the need for third parties or intermediaries altogether can only be considered a worthwhile venture, though.

Populous aspires to provide a high speed and low-cost business model for global invoice trading. Users of this platform will benefit from instant funding, autonomous smart contracts, and a fully automated service for collecting and receiving payments. Moreover, invoice sellers and buyers can interact with one another regardless of their location and without the need for intermediaries. Last but not least, all invoices are uploaded onto the Ethereum blockchain to ensure they are immutable at all times.

The entire Populous ecosystem uses XBRL data to access and assess financial statements for invoice sellers. Over 1,500 data points will be extracted to analyze the risk of a company or individual. By combining this data with smart contracts and Altman Z-Scores, a proprietary credit rating system will be implemented. A system such as Populous would not be able to gain traction without an actual credit rating system, as trust is still an important factor, even in a trustless environment.

Can Populous Succeed?

That is the main question on most people’s minds. No one can deny Populous aims to make a big impact on a market which has not been explored by a lot of blockchain service providers just yet. This doesn’t mean the platform will automatically become a big hit, but the concept and technology appear to be rather solid. If the project can successfully connect invoice sellers and buyers over the blockchain, a lot of interesting things will happen in the future. It is evident Populous is a project worth keeping an eye on, but it still has everything to prove.