R3 grows Latin America footprint with addition of Banco Bradesco to distributed ledger consortium

Brazil-based Banco Bradesco has joined the R3 blockchain consortium.

The move means the Latin American lender will be collaborating with over 50 financial institutions to develop solutions that leverage distributed and shared ledger technology.

Bank of America, BNY Mellon, Citi, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan are already members.

“Innovation plays a crucial role at Bradesco and we are committed to better serve our customers and add value to our shareholders,” said Maurício Machado de Minas, executive vice president at Bradesco.

“Distributed ledger technologies can help us to achieve these objectives and we are excited about joining R3, so that we can work together and discover the full potential of this new technology.”

David Rutter, chief of R3, added: “The addition of Bradesco is a further milestone in the global expansion of our consortium.

“Latin America is an important region for us as we seek to develop distributed and shared ledger-inspired technology that meets the requirements of a diverse network of members operating in financial markets across the globe.”

R3 recently unveiled Corda, its shared ledger platform specifically designed to record, manage and synchronize financial agreements between regulated financial institutions.

The tool heavily inspired by and captures the benefits of blockchain systems, without the design choices that make blockchains inappropriate for many banking scenarios