On December 8th, South Korean agricultural and commercial banking giant Nonghyup (NH) Bank announced that it has joined R3 Blockchain consortium.
With this move, the Seoul-based banking giant is aiming to collaborate with other enterprises which are working with blockchain technology.
As quoted by Business Korea, an official of NH Nonghyup Bank stated: “We will acquire technology by joining the consortium and apply it to various sectors of NH Nonghyup Bank such as the financial and economic sectors.”
Meanwhile, this is not the only blockchain consortium NH Bank has joined. In December last year, the bank also joined South Korea’s home-breed blockchain consortium which aims to build blockchain based tools to manage trade and financial processes. Other members of that consortium include Daishin Securities, Dongbu Securities, Yuanta Securities Korea, and Kiwoom Securities along with some blockchain based startups.
What is R3?
Launched in 2015, R3 is a New York-based startup which collaborates with financial institutions all around the world to research and develop blockchain based financial solutions.
The R3 consortium has already created a platform for the financial sector, called Corda, which runs on the DLT. The first version (1.0) was launched in the month of October and is specifically designed for the management, administration, and synchronization of blockchain agreements. It has the capability to create smart-contracts which R3 believe will bring transparency and also reduce the cost.
Currently, R3 has over 100 partners which include financial institutions, regulators, trade associations and others.
In October, R3 was also involved in a lawsuit against Ripple in a US court, and the verdict ultimately favored Ripple.
Recently R3 also announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services which chose R3’s platform as its entry point into blockchain technology. By collaborating with all these institutions and tech giants, R3 is set to be a big player in the enterprise blockchain industry.
