Feb 28, 2018
In episode 103, Kestrel welcomes Paul Allard, the Founder and President of impak Finance, to the show. With the use of fintech, impak Finance has the intention of helping develop a positive social impact economy. They successfully launched the impak Coin ICO last summer, which is the 1st legal cryptocurrency in North America.
"We're in 2018 - the real
economy should all be about the social impact economy - focusing on
trying to solve environmental and social issues, while doing
money."
-Paul Allard, Founder of impak Finance
In this episode, Paul explains the different facets of impak Finance, and how their e-wallet, marketplace and impak coins work together toward a goal of supporting the growth of an economy that has a positive social impact.
Additionally, Kestrel asks Paul to dive deeper into blockchain technology, to help us understand more of how it works, and especially, how the technology has the potential to create greater transparency in supply chains.
The below thoughts, ideas + organizations were brought up in this chat:
- UN Sustainable Development Goals, framework of standards that impak Finance uses for their marketplace
- Blockchain Technology: instead of having multiple steps in the digital money exchange validation process (credit cards, etc), blockchain streamlines it into a 1 step authentication process which happens on the cloud. Additionally, traditional multi-step validation processes are expensive, and blockchain massively reduces that cost.
- Humaniq, "a new generation of financial services with its own cryptocurrency, which is aimed at eradicating poverty amongst millions of people living in the emerging economies"
- Beneficial State Bank, founded on a vision to create a sustainable, meaningful community development bank and a supporting nonprofit organization
- Aspiration, "offers socially-conscious and sustainable banking and investing so you can make money while making the world a better place. And, unlike the Big Banks, we don’t use your deposits to fund oil pipelines or turn your fees into campaign contributions to the politicians that work against you."
Recommended reading from the intro:
The State of Fashion 2018
Report
by The Business of Fashion + McKinsey & Company