German banking giant Commerzbank is the latest to join the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), a leading blockchain consortium focused on cross-industry cooperations.

EEA is an open source blockchain initiative with over 400 member organisations including the likes of Microsoft, J.P. Morgan, Cisco Systems, Deloitte, Thomson Reuters and others. It aims to build, promote and support Ethereum-based technology best practices, open standards and open-source reference architectures.

“Joining the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is another important step for us in diversifying our blockchain activities and testing different technology standards”, said Jörg Hessenmüller, Divisional Board Member Development and Strategy at Commerzbank. “Blockchain is one of several emerging technologies that we explore at Commerzbank and that help us to further develop our banking business. We see great potential here. The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance offers us the opportunity to further expand our cross-industry collaborations.”

Commerzbank is actively involved in the blockchain space and has been investing in the technology in its own blockchain lab – testing possibilities for new applications in the banking industry.

In collaboration with partners from financial, industrial, and scientific sectors, the bank has already carried out several blockchain-based pilot transactions. In September 2017, it successfully carried out a security transaction via a blockchain which comprised of a €100,000 issuance volume with a five-day term. Last month, Commerzbank announced that it processed a EUR 500,000 forex transaction using blockchain in collaboration with thyssenkrupp.