Populous harnesses blockchain technology to improve the segment of invoice financing. With the platform, businesses can expedite their cash flow, while those who choose to buy invoices will make passive income from their purchase. This is a peer-to-peer invoice finance platform that can globalize the limited, localized market of invoice financing. The platform is built using the blockchain’s distributed ledger tech.
What Is Invoice Financing?
For those who need a quick refresher, invoice financing lets companies nearly instantly unlock the funds that are tied up in outstanding invoices from sales. The owners of businesses let someone else, the invoice buyer, purchase their invoice at a discounted rate. This allows the business to unlock the cash more quickly. Then, when the invoice debtor pays the invoice, the buyer receives the quantity that they and the seller previously agreed upon.
Who Started Populous?
Populous began in 2017 thanks to Stephen Williams, a commercial data expert who wanted a platform that allowed for invoice financing, as well as customer acquisition using big data. He created the idea of letting XBRL data mine to provide information for prospective clients, but his idea didn’t get traction in the invoice financing industry. He realized that the blockchain could be the answer. Now, the blockchain-based invoice platform for Populous expands the number of potential clients while also creating new liquidity.
How Does Populous Improve on the Current Invoice Finance System?
At the moment, the invoice finance system is somewhat limited, mostly to local transactions. Those who participate also need to use a financial institution or third party to connect the business looking to sell an invoice with a buyer. By contrast, Populous allows businesses to directly connect with invoice buyers from around the world, cutting out the middleman and saving time. At the same time, Populous takes advantage of blockchain benefits, such as speed, transparency, and security.
Why Did Populous Choose to Use the Blockchain?
The team behind Populous turned to the blockchain to expand the reach of invoice financing. Before, it was only available via financial institutions that had barriers to entry, such as high fees. With blockchain financial technology, however, all invoice sellers and investors can interact without those barriers.
The blockchain also eliminates the barrier associated with the geographic location. The Poken cryptocurrency is fiat pegged, making it possible for those around the world to use the platform. Unlike the similar platforms that banks have tried to create in the past, Populous is not limited by the industry regulations of finance and banking. Without those regulations, Populous has a greater potential.
The use of the blockchain also lets users take advantage of smart contracts. With smart contracts, there are no inefficiencies or risks typically linked to manual contracts, such as the duplication of financing and manual errors. The smart contract takes care of everything and includes a clear description of all legal requirements. Using smart contracts further stops fraud since there is no possibility of duplicate financing.
What Are the Main Benefits of Populous?
The biggest advantage of Populous is its function of providing global P2P trade financing. Via this platform, invoice buyers and sellers can complete a transaction without any need for a third party no matter where in the world they are. The transactions are also completed quickly and at a low cost because there are no third parties involved. Instead, the smart contracts perform all the funding autonomously, both collecting and releasing payments. Finally, Populous provides unprecedented safety since every invoice is recorded transparently right on the Ethereum Blockchain, meaning there is no risk of mistakes.
Populous also uses XBRL data for real-time access to financial statements. This database extracts more than 1,500 data points for every company, allowing the invoice buyer to know the risk associated with the company, its industry, and its trading partners. Populous even has its own credit risk analysis based on XBRL data and Altman Z-scores, along with other formulas. Every six to 12 months, Populous collects about a petabyte of data via its XBRL back-end that is part of this credit analysis.
How Do You Use Populous?
A typical transaction with Populous will go through set steps. It will begin with a company offering an invoice with set terms. An invoice buyer will select the invoice they want to finance. The buyer bids on the invoice, setting an interest rate. The seller confirms this, and the invoice is officially sold. The seller releases the invoice to the buyer and receives money from them. Once the invoice is settled, the invoice buyer gets the agreed-upon return.
What Is Poken PPT?
Poken is the previously mentioned cryptocurrency that connects users of Populous throughout the world. Poken is used for all transactions between the sellers and buyers of invoices and is pegged to be 1:1 with national government currencies. This means that 8 GBP will be 8 Pokens (GBP). Additionally, Pokens are ERC-20 compliant, making it possible to use smart contracts within the Ethereum blockchain. By using these custom stable Pokens, sellers and buyers don’t have to worry about market volatility and the platform can support currencies worldwide without any third parties.
All deposits have to be converted to Pokens. Invoice buyers transfer Pokens to the sellers, and when they repay the invoice, sellers transfer Pokens to the buyer. You can then withdraw funds in Bitcoin, Ethereum, or government currencies. Initially, Pokens are linked to the British Pound, GBP. Even so, users can convert GBP Pokens to Pokens for other currency denominations, such as USD Pokens, based on the prevailing conversion rate.
How to Store Populous PPT?
As mentioned, Poken is an ERC-20 Ethereum token which means it can be safely stored on an Ethereum Paper Wallet or a Hardware wallet such as the Trezor or Ledger.
How to Buy Populous PPT?
You are not able to purchase PPT with “Fiat” currency so you will need to first purchase another currency – the easiest to buy are Bitcoin or Ethereum which you can do at Coinbase using a bank transfer or debit / credit card purchase and then trade that for PPT at an exchange such as Binance.
Register at Coinbase
For first time buyers of crypto currency, we recommend that you use Coinbase to make your first purchase – its easy to use, fully regulated by the US government so you know it is one of the safest and most reputable places to purchase cryptocurrency from. Coinbase offers the ability to purchase Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum with a credit or debit card or by sending a bank transfer. The fees are higher for cards but you will receive your currency instantly.
You will have to carry out some identity verification when signing up as they have to adhere to strict financial guidelines. Make sure you use our link to signup you will be credited with $10 in free bitcoin when you make your first purchase of $100.
To get started, click the “Sign up” button where you will be taken to a registration form where you will need to enter your name, email and choose a password.
Purchase Ethereum
For this guide, we will be purchasing Ethereum to swap for our target cryptocurrency. The reason for this is that it has far cheaper fees than bitcoin for sending and the transaction also happens a lot faster. So in Coinbase, visit the “Buy / Sell” tab at the top, select “Ethereum”, choose your payment method and enter the amount you wish to purchase – you can either enter a US Dollar amount or a number of Ether.
You will then be asked to confirm your transaction, if paying with a card you might have to complete a verification with your card provider. Once that’s complete, your Ethererum will be added to your account.
Final Thought
Many people are still unaware of the possible investments with invoicing financing due to its previously limited reach. With Populous, this can change, allowing any business to sell its unpaid invoices to any buyer around the world. The use of the blockchain is innovative as it allows for transparency and expands the reach of the peer-to-peer platform. For those interested in invoice financing, Populous should be an incredibly useful tool.
