Populous – Blockchain Invoice Technology For Trade Finance Business?

Populous is a platform that lets you sell or buy invoices online using blockchain technology. Here’s our Populous review.

What Is Populous?

Populous is a blockchain technology platform that lets you sell your invoices online and take control of your cash flow. The company is rebuilding invoice and trade finance using their blockchain technology.

Found online at Populous.co, the platform is a mix between blockchain and invoice finance. It relies on blockchain technologies like XBRL, smart contracts, Stable tokens, and more to create a unique trading environment for investors and invoice sellers worldwide.

Using Populous, companies can sell invoices quickly, then redeem their Populous digital tokens for real-world fiat currencies. They can do this in a cheaper, faster, and more transparent way than what is currently available through conventional invoice marketplaces.

The overall goal of Populous is to make a new, next-generation financial marketplace. To date, Populous is the first and only invoice and trade finance platform on the Ethereum blockchain. It allows you to buy and sell invoices globally.

The ecosystem is based around the use of Populous’s custom tokens called Pokens, which are pegged 1 to 1 with fiat currencies around the world. The value of Pokens is backed by investors who deposit funds on the platform to finance invoices.

You can sell your invoice for Pokens, then redeem those Pokens for currencies in the real world. It’s just like selling an invoice through an ordinary marketplace, but with cheaper transaction fees and faster processing thanks to blockchain technology.

How Does Populous Work?

Populous is based around the distribution of Pokens.

Once invoices are financed by investors, Pokens are sent to invoice sellers (also known as borrowers). Pokens can be exchanged for fiat currency or transferred to an external Ethereum wallet.

Pokens work in two different ways: inside and outside the platform. Inside the platform, Populous manages an internal ledger with the balances of each borrower’s and investor’s accounts for each currency. Outside the platform, Populous offers a publicly accessible smart contract for each token.

The tokens are based on the ERC20 token standard. The Populous blockchain itself is a combination of the Ethereum and RSK blockchains. Other technologies in use with Populous include XBRL, the Z Score formula, Smart contracts, Stable tokens, and others.

You can view more detailed technical information about Populous at the company’s whitepaper here.

How to Use Populous

There are three main parties in the Populous ecosystem, including the Administrator, Borrower, and Investor. The administrator approves and manages clients’ accounts and actions. The borrower sells invoices on the platform (Clients can register as borrowers when they want to sell invoices). And the Investor bids on auctioned invoices (clients can register as invoices when they want to buy invoices).

These three parties interact with the core three technologies of the Populous system, including:

Bank:

The bank manages the internal ledger for all platform accounts, including the connections between the internal ledger and the external tokens.

Auction:

The auction platform manages auction operations. Administrators can create auctions based on data provided by borrowers. Investors can create investor groups through the auction platform, or make bids on auctions. The auction module is logically connected to the IPFS distributed web. In other words, every invoice auction has hash references to related documents uploaded on the IPFS web.

External Tokens:

Every worldwide government currency which is supported by the platform has a corresponding smart contract. These external tokens are based on the ERC20 token standard. Clients can withdraw their funds outside the platform using these smart contracts, allowing them to gain sovereign access to their tokens.

Who Should Use Populous?

Ultimately, Populous is for three groups of people:

• People who are tired of waiting for customers to pay their invoices
• People who wish to upload invoices and have them paid within 24 hours
• Anyone who wants to gain fast access to cash by selling an invoice as soon as possible

The invoice selling industry is thriving on the internet. Populous just wants to introduce blockchain technology to the invoice marketplace, facilitating faster, easier, and cheaper international transactions in a transparent, decentralized marketplace.

About Populous

The concept for Populous was launched in November 2016. The company’s whitepaper emerged in February 2017, while the ICO launched in July. By September, Populous hopes to achieve XBRL integration in preparation for a public beta release in November 2017.

Key members of Populous include Stephen Williams (Founder & CEO), Zvezdomir Zlatinov (Solidity Developer), Jason Tuang (Financial Consultant), and John Morton (CTO).

The company is based in London.

Populous Conclusion

Populous is a smart contract invoice finance platform built on the Ethereum and RSK blockchains. The company wants to change the way to sell invoices online. They’re rebuilding invoice and trade finance block by block on the blockchain.

With Populous, you can upload invoices, have outstanding invoices paid within 24 hours, and gain access to your cash more quickly than before.

Learn more about Populous today by visiting the company online at Populous.co. The Populous ICO is taking place throughout July, with the public beta release scheduled for September.