When a company sends an invoice, there’s usually a delay until the invoice ends up getting paid. The delay can cause problems for businesses. When they have to wait to receive payment, it can put pressure on their cash flow. This is what’s called invoice financing. Populous set out to provide a way for businesses to get financing until their invoices arrive.
The idea behind Populous is that it would be a platform enabling peer-to-peer lending and borrowing between participants. Unlike normal loans, this short-term lending would only be backed by pending invoices as the underlying capital, even if the client hasn’t paid yet. Those who have invoices to “sell” would be the borrowers, while those “buying” the invoices would be thought of as the lenders/investors in the arrangement. That’s where the Populous platform token, or PPT, comes in. Investors on the platform use PPT to make transactions in this cryptocurrency, which can also be traded on a crypto exchange for BTC, ETH, or fiat.
At the same time, by bypassing the mainstream banking system, participants can get much lower fees and rates on their loans than they would otherwise. This isn’t a benefit unique to Populous. Any other type of decentralized marketplace can say the same thing. Regardless, it’s just another reason why Populous became so popular back when it was founded. The platform doesn’t have a minimum requirement to participate either.
