Japanese financial services company Mizuho Financial Group, Inc announced the completion of blockchain trials in cross-border document sharing and custom digital currency, in partnership with IT giant Cognizant Technology Solutions.

The collaboration between Mizuho and Cognizant developed an application with a focus on furthering and enhancing collaboration across the Mizuho group through facilitating data sharing, as well as the issue and transfer of digital currency between Mizuho subsidiaries, the release stated.

“The (blockchain) solution successfully confirmed that a tamper–proof distributed database, one of the key features of blockchain technology, can be leveraged to create an effective platform for information sharing among multiple group companies, resulting in potential cost savings and enhanced usability. Additionally, the project demonstrated that blockchain enables IT infrastructure used by multiple group companies to be implemented swiftly and cost–effectively,” the announcement said.

The blockchain project was designed in order to explore and test whether a business process that is as robust as the traditional centralized system can be built at a lower cost.

The objectives of the next initiative would involve addressing the necessity to store as well as manage large volumes of data using blockchain technology.

Mizuho stated that it will be continuing to work on the trail applications of blockchain in the financial services sector and intends to become an early adopter of this nascent technology.