The investment banking world's infatuation with blockchain — the technology made famous by bitcoin — continues.
5 more banks have signed up the industry-wide group looking at how to use the technology in mainstream banking. They are: BNP Paribas, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, ING Bank, Macquarie Bank, and Wells Fargo & Co.
That takes the total number of banks now backing the R3 initiative to 30. R3 is a startup in its own right, headed by a former Wall Street veteran, but it has done a hell of a job bringing all the rival banks together.
R3's CEO David Rutter told us the plan is to build the "fabric" of blockchain technology for banking and build out some use cases.
The blockchain is the software that both powers and regulates cryptocurrency bitcoin. In its most basic form, it records ownership of bitcoin — money — and transactions, one person paying another.
The software uses a distributed ledger to police the network, meaning a certain proportion of the vast network must sign off on any transaction before it can go through. The replaces the need for a "trusted middleman" to sit in between parties in a transaction.
While the original blockchain underpins bitcoin, banks are keen to create a similar network that can help it do things that settlement and international payments. More way-out possible uses include registering ownership assets and securities on the network.
R3 on Thursday also unveiled the team who will be working on bringing blockchain technology to mainstream banking:
- CTO Richard Gendal Brown, formerly the executive architect for banking innovation at IBM;
- Chief engineer James Carlyle, the former chief engineer for personal and corporate banking architecture at Barclays;
- Lead platform engineer Mike Hearn, an ex-senior software engineer at Google and one of the first bitcoin users;
- Architecture consultant Ian Grigg, inventor of the Ricardian Contract and co-inventor of triple entry accounting;
- and head of research Tim Swanson, market researcher who has authored a study on bitcoin.
Rutter says in an emailed statement: "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.
"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."
Here's the full list of the dream team of banks signed up to the R3 blockchain working group:
Bank of America, Barclays, BBVA, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, CIBC, Citi, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ING Bank, J.P. Morgan, Macquarie Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group, Morgan Stanley, National Australia Bank, Nordea, Royal Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Scotland, SEB, Societe Generale, State Street, Toronto-Dominion Bank, UBS, UniCredit, and Wells Fargo.
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