Grantee Directory

Projects and organizations funded by the Interledger Foundation, working to expand access to digital financial services around the world.

The Work in Practice

Interledger grantees work across the world in different financial environments, from regions with limited infrastructure to highly connected digital economies. They include community-based organizations, researchers, technologists, and advocates who build infrastructure, advance research, shape policy, and expand how financial systems work in practice.

Year
2025

5 results

  1. Chioma Nwaiwu

    Call for Papers

    5 000 USD

    Total amount committed

    • Location: Nigeria
    Project lead: Chioma Nwaiwu

    Financial Inclusion at the Margins: Forcibly Displaced Persons, Gender gaps and the Potential of Open Payment Interoperability in Nigeria. This paper draws on a 2024 CBN-led diagnostic survey across seven states (Adamawa, Borno, Benue, Cross River, Katsina, Yobe, and Zamfara)ā€”where over 60% of IDPs resideā€”to examine financial inclusion among IDPs in camps, IDPs in host communities, refugees, and local residents. Though the current National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) (2021ā€“2024) does not explicitly target forcibly displaced persons (FDPs), its emphasis on underserved regions, KYC constraints, and non-bank delivery channels aligns with many of their barriers. The diagnostic lays the foundation for FDP inclusion in Nigeria's upcoming NFIS strategy, highlighting that without intentional targeting, FDPsā€”especially women and rural dwellersā€”will remain structurally excluded.

  2. Dr. Muhammad Shabbir

    Call for Papers

    5 000 USD

    Total amount committed

    • Location: Pakistan
    Project lead: Muhammad Shabbir

    Banking on Rights: A Case Study of Digital Financial Inclusion for Blind Persons in Pakistan Following coordinated advocacy involving DPOs (Disabled Personsā€™ Organizations), technologists, and legal experts, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) issued guidelines on 5 December 2014, urging banks to facilitate blind customers through digital banking services. However, these guidelines have resulted in inconsistent implementation. In June 2021, the SBP introduced a comprehensive Policy for Financial Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities, mandating banks to develop Boardapproved strategies for the inclusion of PWDs as customers and employees. This policy emphasizes the need for accessible digital banking platforms, staff training, and the establishment of model branches equipped to serve PWDs. Yet it failed to mandate the accessibility of mobile apps and websitesā€”a vital omission, given that digital platforms are now the primary mode of banking in Pakistan. Thus, while access has improved in theory, significant challenges remain in practice. This research seeks to document this evolution as a case of regulatory disruption from the margins and examines the implications for rights-based financial governance in the Global South.

  3. Fernanda Pizarro Munoz

    Call for Papers

    5 000 USD

    Total amount committed

    • Location: Chile
    Project lead: Fernanda Pizarro Munoz

    The Magallanes Experiment: How Open Payment Protocols Can Redesign Financial Inclusion in Chileā€™s Borderlands. This paper examines regulatory gaps in Chileā€™s payment policies (e.g., Transbankā€™s monopoly, Fintech Law 2023) and proposes reforms to mandate interoperability as public infrastructure, inspired by models like Indiaā€™s UPI. It then explores ILPā€™s technical potential to enable low-cost, cross-border payments in Magallanes, formalizing informal transactions while ensuring security and public oversight. By linking policy (central bank mandates, antitrust rules) with technology (decentralized protocols, governance standards), the paper argues that interoperable systemsā€”when embedded in lawā€”can empower marginalized regions, turning Magallanes into a blueprint for financially excluded yet digitally connected territories worldwide.

  4. Mila T. Samdub

    Call for Papers

    5 000 USD

    Total amount committed

    • Location: United Kingdom
    Project lead: Mila T. Samdub

    Interrogating Digital Financial Inclusion: DPI, Fintech, Microfinance and the Enduring Importance of Social and Public Infrastructures. This article will be written collaboratively by a policy researcher working on DPI, ideology and the Indian tech industry (Samdub 2023, 2025) and an anthropologist working on microcredit, regulation and financial inclusion (Kaushal 2022, 2025). We will take a mixed-methods approach to these questions, grounded in our prior research and disciplinary training. This will largely consist of desk research into current DPI policy supplemented by economic data, expert interviews, ethnographic detail and secondary research into the history of financial inclusion in India. The ethnographic evidence is derived from prior research with low-income borrowers across Indian cities, with a special focus on women borrowers and fintech users (Kaushal 2025).

  5. Wei (Wayne) Wang

    Call for Papers

    5 000 USD

    Total amount committed

    • Location: Hong Kong
    Project lead: Wei (Wayne) Wang

    Informal Interoperability and Digital Yuanization in Africa: A Chinaā€“South Africa Comparative Study of Cross-Border Financial Inclusion. This paper will investigate both the potential and the potential challenges of embracing interoperable digital transaction systems as the primary form of payment within mass transit systems around the world, specifically exploring how the Interledger Protocol (ILP) ā€” a protocol the enables rapid interoperable payments ā€” could be pivotal to this aim. By examining the current successes and failures of mass transit payment structures in various cities, this paper will form a comprehensive summary of how the Interledger Protocol (ILP) might act as a vehicle for enabling both greater economic and physical mobility. It will synthesize the findings of case study examples that explore how interoperable digital payments have already been deployed in order to facilitate greater financial access, and what barriers those systems have faced. The qualitative and quantitative insights drawn from this analysis will be applied towards building directly on the summary understanding of the current state of mass transit payment systems in order to draw conclusions about how ILP can most effectively be used to expand access to transit on a global scale.