More than 30 Chinese financial firms have formed a new Financial Blockchain Shenzhen Consortium dedicated to blockchain.

Ping An Bank and a subsidiary of QQ instant message app maker Tencent are among 31 Chinese financial firms that have joined Financial Blockchain Shenzhen Consortium, officially launched on 31st May this year. According to CoinDesk, the member firms focus on securities exchange, trading platforms, life insurance, capital markets technology and banking among others.

The consortium marks the next step of development that features the latest business ties, in order to explore the applications of the technology.

The goals of the new alliance include members collaborating to perform research on the blockchain application and create group-wide blockchain projects which will focus on financial use cases. The consortium will also serve as a communication tool for companies and a platform for information sharing.

"We wish to take advantage of this opportunity to collaborate with local financial and Internet companies and contribute to the exploration of blockchain in China," Daniel Tu, Ping An group chief innovation officer told the coindesk.com.

Ping An group is already a member of the R3-led consortium of global financial institutions, which made it the first Chinese member of the consortium. The R3 blockchain consortium consists of over 40 of the largest financial institutions including Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs among others.

The Financial Blockchain Shenzhen Consortium is the second alliance of this type in China after ChinaLedger Alliance which was announced in April. Its activity is backed by a nonprofit research organisation Wanxiang Blockchain Labs. Its list of advisors includes the founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin, one of bitcoin core developers Jeff Garzik and R3 researcher Tim Swanson.