In a bid to boost the adoption of blockchain applications by 600 banks and corporates, SIA and enterprise software firm R3 have launched a strategic partnership.

SIA was founded in 1977 by the Bank of Italy, ABI (the Italian Banking Association) and a number of Italian banks, in order to develop the domestic payments system by exploiting the potential of information and communication technologies. It provides technology infrastructures and services for financial institutions, central banks, corporates, and public administration bodies, in the areas of payments, cards, network services and capital markets.

The partnership will work towards leveraging SIAnet’s 600 nodes provided to financial institutions, corporate, and public administrations. As part of the partnership, SIA will build a secure and protected network called SIAchain.

Announced last month, SIAchain is a new infrastructure based on blockchain technology for financial institutions, corporate, and public administration bodies. Under the partnership, SIAchain will be integrated with R3’s Corda platform to enable SIA customers to run CordDapps – applications designed specifically to meet the needs of institutions across the banking and finance sector.

“The collaboration with the R3 consortium is a milestone in our blockchain strategy. We will integrate on SIAchain, which rests on roughly 600 nodes of the SIAnet network throughout Europe, the most advanced technologies available and we will develop innovative applications for financial institutions, corporates and public sector,” said Massimo Arrighetti, CEO of SIA.

The partnership is aimed at allowing the use of CorDapps through the SIAchain infrastructure, which guarantees their full availability and use, ensuring a standardised operating context, to registered members of specific communities.

“We designed Corda as an open source platform specifically to encourage partnerships such as this. Working with our partners we are growing a diverse ecosystem of interoperable applications on the platform, each providing a unique solution to the challenges faced by financial market participants. In addition, leveraging connectivity to existing networks such as SIA’s helps speed up adoption and implementation of DLT across global financial markets,” said David E. Rutter, CEO of R3.

The first CorDapps on SIAchain will be available from the first quarter of 2018, according to the official release.