U.S.-based financial innovation firm R3, now comprising over 70 members across the industry, has added Peruvian financial services company Credicorp to its blockchain consortium.

Credicorp is the first Spanish-speaking Latin American financial institution to join the consortium. With this membership, the company aims to design and apply distributed and shared ledger-inspired technologies to the global financial markets.

According to the release, collaborating with world’s largest financial institutions, Credicorp will develop cutting-edge commercial applications for the financial services industry that will leverage appropriate elements of blockchain technology.

“From our InnovaCXión Center, we are creating digital, user-friendly products and services that will improve our clients’ banking experience. Joining R3 is part of our digital transformation strategy and will consolidate our leadership in technological innovation in Peru and across the region,” Luis Alfonso Carrera, Head of Corporate Banking at Credicorp, said.

Credicorp provides corporate and personal banking, brokerage services, and other financial services across its six principal subsidiaries. Headquartered in Peru, the company also operates in other South American countries including Bolivia, Columbia, and Chile and is listed on the Lima and New York stock exchanges. The company will be joining the global network of R3 members united in the R3 Lab and Research Centre.

R3’s team that consists of financial industry veterans, blockchain and cryptocurrency experts and technologists, will work closely with the consortium members on research, experimentation, design, and engineering, among others. By advancing the blockchain technology, they will meet banking requirements for identity, privacy, security, scalability, interoperability, with legacy systems.

“R3 is the largest collaborative consortium of its kind in financial markets, now comprising over 70 members from all corners of the industry. Credicorp’s expertise and knowledge of Latin American markets will be a key asset as we continue to establish our footprint in the region,” David Rutter, CEO of R3 commented.

The R3 members work closely to continue developing Corda, its financial grade distributed ledger platform that records, executes and manages institutions’ financial agreements. Recently, the Corda blockchain platform was made open source, making its source code accessible to the global developer community in order to encourage collaboration, review, and contribution to the platform.