Thus R3 project has just grown up to 42 members – the world’s largest and most influential banks.
New York-based innovation company R3, focused on building and empowering the next generation of global financial services technology, continues to grow. It has just added 12 new banks to its blockchain consortium.
Today R3 welcomed BMO Financial Group, Danske Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, Natixis, Nomura, Northern Trust, OP Financial Group, Banco Santander, Scotiabank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, U.S. Bancorp and Westpac Banking Corporation. Thus the number of financial institutions taking part in developing various blockchain applications makes up 42 now.
Since its launch in September, when 9 world’s large banks united to apply blockchain to financial services, commercial products and financial-grade distributed ledger solutions have been developed and the initiative have no plans to stop. Blockchain has always been highly appreciated by financial institutions for quite low risk of fraud and high level of transparency.
For the recent next months leading banks from all over the world have joined R3 project and now the window for the admission of new bank members is closed under the consortium’s formative agreement. The company wants to focus on more intensive involvement of non-bank institutions.
David Rutter, CEO of R3, says: “Partnering with a broad range of institutions has always been central to our strategy of developing distributed ledger technologies that will truly benefit the financial services industry as a whole. Securing the backing of 42 of the world’s leading banks demonstrates the level of interest in our initiative, and we now look forward to exploring collaboration with non-bank institutions and expanding our already diverse group.”
Rutter also shares his vision on the potential of blockchain: “R3 has long believed that distributed ledger technology has the potential to impact the financial services sector the way the Internet changed media and entertainment. Yes, that’s a big statement, but there is increasing evidence to support it. When you look across the industry, the possible applications of these innovative solutions cut across asset classes, geographies and market participants. Ultimately, these technologies will benefit not just financial services firms, but their clients and end-users as well. We’re very excited to be at the epicenter of this global evolution.”
The full list of the banks involved in R3 project includes: Banco Santander, Bank of America, Barclays, BBVA, BMO Financial Group, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, CIBC, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Citi, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, Danske Bank, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ING Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, Macquarie Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group, Morgan Stanley, National Australia Bank, Natixis, Nomura, Nordea, Northern Trust, OP Financial Group, Scotiabank, State Street, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Royal Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Scotland, SEB, Societe Generale, Toronto-Dominion Bank, UBS, UniCredit, U.S. Bancorp, Wells Fargo and Westpac Banking Corporation.
Notably that the news about further broadening of R3 Company comes at one time with announcement of the Open Ledger Project, an initiative of some large companies such as IBM, Intel, and Cisco aimed at creating an alternative to the blockchain.
next