Indian banking giants are planning to test an interbank blockchain platform by forming a consortium, in a move to place the country at the forefront of blockchain adoption, EconomicTimes reported.

The consortium members that are involved in the pilot, including the State Bank of India, are partnering and working together with New York-based startup MonetaGo that will be providing the blockchain platform.

The announcement follows soon after the central bank’s technology arm the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) released a white paper for blockchain adoption in banking and finance in India. MonetaGo also provided the blockchain technology for the IDRBT pilot project.

“We are going to be starting a pilot with about 15 of India’s largest banks to test out the platform. The banks have been working on their own blockchain pilots. But this will create a platform that everyone will build on,” Jesse Chenard, CEO of MonetaGo, told EconomicTimes.

Although Jesse did not announce the names of the members involved in the blockchain consortium, he said that the banks involved were responsible for over 80% of all transactions in the country. He said that further announcements would be made during the start of the pilot.

“Once this becomes a working consortium model, banks that put in more servers and computing would be paid back by the banks that are using the technology,” Chenard added. “In about six months, the platform will get set up and get into production. Then, we think it could take three months or so to share the data and talk to the different governing bodies.”

Chenard also said that he expects the pilot to last about nine to twelve months and the pilot would cost a bank a fraction of a million dollars.