Financial innovation firm R3 has announced the addition of a new member to its consortium dedicated to designing and applying distributed and shared ledger-inspired technologies (DLT) to global financial markets.

China Merchants Bank (CMB) is joining R3 blockchain consortium that includes over 60 of the world’s largest financial institutions, to develop ground-breaking commercial applications based on DLT for use across the industry, with a particular focus on the unique needs of the Chinese market.

“It is a great pleasure for us to reach an agreement with R3. As a technologically advanced bank, China Merchants Bank has always actively explored new technologies and applied them in our businesses. Blockchain holds great potential for the banking industry, and we look forward to working together with R3 to deliver the innovation required to improve a range of financial services and processes”, Tianhong Zhou, General Manager of IT Department at CMB, said.

CMB, headquarted in Shenzhen, joins the global network of R3 partners united in its lab environment, the R3 Lab and Research Centre, which has quickly become a center of gravity for collaborative research and testing of distributed and shared-ledger inspired technologies.

Consortium members work closely with R3 to develop Corda, its shared ledger platform specifically designed to record, manage and synchronise financial agreements between regulated financial institutions. It is heavily inspired by and captures the benefits of blockchain systems, without the design choices that make blockchains inappropriate for many banking scenarios. 

“We are delighted to establish a footprint in mainland China and welcome CMB to our rapidly growing consortium. The power of this technology lies in its potential to join institutions across borders and create an efficient and effective infrastructure that is appropriate for today’s increasingly globalised financial markets. We look forward to further growing our network in China over the coming months”, David Rutter, CEO of R3, said.

Recently, R3 CEV filed for a patent covering software behind the new project ‘Concord’. It said that although Concord resembles other platforms working on blockchain technology, the underlying software Corda has enough “unique” features to justify a patent. In addition, the firm released its first whitepaper on Corda: an introductory, non-technical overview that explains its vision, some design choices and outlines the key concepts underpinning the platform.