R3 Blockchain Consortium Now Includes 30 Global Banks, Announces Technology Team

R3, the U.S.-based financial innovation firm, announced on Thursday that five more banks have joined its distributed ledger initiative that includes BNP Paribas, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, ING Bank, Macquarie Bank, and Wells Fargo & Co.

Nine of the world's leading banks announced in September the formation of a partnership to design and deliver advanced distributed/shared ledger technologies to global financial markets, spearheaded by R3. The number of banks in the blockchain consortium grew eventually, totalling to 25 in October with the addition of Mizuho Financial, Nordea and UniCredit and reaching 30 with the latest addition of 5 more banks.

The firm also announced the team tasked with managing the design and delivery of advanced distributed ledger technologies in partnership with its consortium of member banks.

The team includes prominent industry figures such as Richard Gendal Brown, Formerly Executive Architect for Banking Innovation at IBM; James Carlyle, former Chief Engineer for Personal and Corporate Banking Architecture at Barclays; Mike Hearn, one of the world’s leading experts in blockchain-based digital currencies, former senior software engineer at Google; Ian Grigg, inventor of Ricardian contract and Tim Swanson with extensive experience as a business and market research consultant.

“The combined strength of our technology team and the diverse global footprint of our member banks – now including five more members – clearly differentiates us and puts us in a unique and exciting position within the distributed ledger space”, said David Rutter, CEO of R3. “The R3 collaborative model is the best way to quickly, efficiently and cost effectively deliver these new technologies to global financial markets. We look forward to welcoming more players to our growing team as the initiative continues to develop and evolve.”