In September Bitcoin Magazine reported that nine global banks were pooling resources to fund R3, a next-generation global financial services company focused on applications of cryptographic technology and distributed ledger-based protocols within global financial markets. R3 will seek to establish consistent standards and protocols for this emerging technology across the financial industry in order to facilitate broader adoption and gain a network effect, according to an R3 press release. Several other top banks joined R3 soon thereafter. Now, five more banks – ING, BNP Paribas, Wells Fargo, MacQuarie and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce – are joining R3, Reuters reports . R3, now supported by most of the world’s major banks (with notable exceptions in China), represents the first high-profile collaborative project to find out how blockchain technology can be used in finance. Thirty banks across the world are now partnering with R3, signaling a significant commitment to collaboratively evaluate and apply this emerging technology to the global financial system. “The combined strength of our technology team and the diverse global footprint of our member banks clearly differentiates us and puts us in a unique and exciting position within the distributed ledger space,” said R3’s CEO David Rutter. “The R3 collaborative model is the best way to quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively deliver these new technologies to global financial markets. We look forward to welcoming more players to our growing team as the initiative continues to develop and evolve.” Richard Gendal Brown, IBM’s former executive architect of banking innovation, joined R3 in September as chief technology officer. In a recent post on his personal blog, he introduced his senior leadership team, which includes James Carlyle , formerly chief engineer at Barclays Personal and Corporate Bank, who joined R3 as chief engineer, and Bitcoin code developer Mike Hearn , who […]
