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A few hours ago, Ripple announced that they have partnered with Mercy Corps to help improve the financial inclusion of developing countries in order to “strengthen the global economy”, according to today’s official press release.
For this effort, Ripple has contributed $10 million. The goal is to help the nearly 2 billion unbanked people around the world improve their way of life through their financial lives.
Cryptocurrencies have always had this advantage and can help achieve this goal: providing an easy, fast and low fee payment method to people who do not have a bank account or even documents.
Ripple, therefore, wants to help this large part of the global population at a time when the Coronavirus pandemic is pushing more and more towards digital payments and unfortunately widening the gap between rich and poor.
Mercy Corps is working with NGOs, non-governmental organizations, to find economic opportunities for the poorest people, providing aid to 28 million people in 2019.
Ripple for global financial inclusion
In this scenario, the partnership with Ripple and Rippleworks, a nonprofit co-founded by Chris Larsen, Mercy Corps Ventures will help the spread of technologies such as crypto to increase the number of people who can become economically independent. The initiative will last three years.
Ripple and Mercy Corps Ventures are currently defining the pilot project and the fintech companies to invest in, focusing in particular on Latin America.
Scott Onder, Senior Managing Director of Mercy Corps Ventures, said:
“The existing financial system is fragmented, antiquated, and exclusionary-leaving 1.7B people unbanked and disproportionately excluding women. Emerging fintech, crypto and blockchain technologies have the potential to radically transform it, but there are substantial risks for the world’s most vulnerable people if their needs are not taken into consideration as these new technologies are designed and deployed. We are going to leverage our global resources and reach to ensure community voices are heard and vulnerable populations are not left behind in the fintech revolution”.