Stellar’s Co-Founder Comments on IBM World Wire: ‘Not Much Progress To-Date’

IBM has finally announced its plans with ‘World Wire’ and their goal towards providing financial services to the unbanked population of the world. It is now officially available in a growing number of markets. It is a payment network that allows plans to allow for faster and more efficient settlement of payments.

The duo IBM’s Blockchain head Jesse Lund and Stellar Lumens Co-Founder Jed McCaleb took center stage at the Asia Money 2020 Conference in Singapore on 19th March 2019 and revisited their plans with ‘World-Wire.’ The vision according to them is to create a ‘Global Financial Economy.’

Stronghold USD and Stellar Lumens (XLM)

The two digital assets currently used for settlement are Stellar Lumens (XLM) and Stronghold USD. Stronghold USD is a stable coin managed by Stronghold Anchor Limited in New Zealand.

The ‘world wire’ aims to bring a consortium of firms, financial institutions, banks and even the unbanked people of the world through smartphones.

Jed McCabed noted that:

“It’s officially available in growing number of markets and everyone underestimated how long it would take to get adoption due to lack of payments Network effects… The only way it can be achieved by bringing a consortium or a whole group of people together.”

Also Read: IBM ‘World Wire’ to Transform Cross-Border Payments Completely

Financial Inclusion

On Financial inclusion, Jesse Lund noted that their aim with ‘world wire’ is essentially providing easy and low-cost remittance to the under-undeveloped and unbanked population of the world. He said,

“$2 billion people do not have access to bank accounts.. over a billion of them actually have a smartphone or feature phone… we can actually bring money further and farther than it could go before even in the absence of banking service.

Its not just taking share from somebody else” It is a revolution “in the payments industry”

Moreover, Jed also noted though there hasn’t been any tangible adoption now, they have received positive intent from some banks and institutions.

“He said he is excited about the next six months or a year.. when the snowballing effect with many instituions will come into play.”