Cardano Founder: ‘There’s about 3 billion people without access to banks’

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson joined Yahoo Finance Live on June 9 to discuss the initiatives that Cardano is taking international. Cardano is also working to provide crucial financial services to those who don’t have access to banks in such countries as Ethiopia and Kenya.

Video Transcript

CHARLES HOSKINSON: Now the intent is for the software to become a financial operating system across the world. But one area of passion I particularly have is in the developing world. So the idea is economic identity and agency for those who don't have it. There's about 3 billion people who don't have reliable access to banks. They pay high prices for remittances, for credit, for insurance, and other financial services, if they can even get them.

So a lot of our company's roll out has been in Ethiopia, Kenya, and other places, either directly or indirectly through partners. Places like Zanzibar, for example, World Mobile is constructing an ISP. So they're actually going to roll out internet across the entire country and build a blockchain-based system. In Ethiopia, we're doing an academic credentials project, and it's about 5 million students that are being gradually onboarded.

So all their grades and credentials can be checked using the Cardano blockchain system. And in Kenya, we have microfinance pilot support. Those are just some personal things my company does, but it's a big ecosystem.