Thomson Reuters, the parent company of prominent international news agency Reuters is the newest member joining the R3 blockchain consortium.
The private blockchain consortium led by New York-based R3 will now include mass media company Thomson Reuters. The data and technology provider will contribute insights from its engagement with customers in the financial sector to further bolster and drive innovation and adoption of blockchain technology in the sector.
The addition of Thomson Reuters is notable to a consortium that was – until recently – predominantly seen as a private banking blockchain working group led by technology provider and developer R3.
Thomson Reuters’ executive Mark Rodrigues, the customer solutions manager at the media company revealed that it had already begun working on blockchain proof-of-concept projects.
Thomson Reuters has been collaborating with customers on blockchain and distributed ledger initiatives and powerful proof-of-concept projects for some time now.
“The opportunities afforded by this emerging technology are enormously exciting for us and our customers,” he said, adding,” our goal with R3 is to collaborate together with the consortium and our customers in these key industry discussions as we shape the future of financial transactions.”
Thomson Reuters will be the first major data and technology provider to join the consortium and the value offered by the mass media giant wasn’t lost on R3 CEO David Rutter.
In a statement, he said:
Distributed and shared ledger-based solutions hold the potential to transform the technology used by financial market participants to execute trades and access market data, and Thomson Reuters’ insight and expertise in this field will be an invaluable asset to our collaborative lab environment.
Thomson Reuters joins recent members including Toyota Financial Services – the financial arm of Toyota Motors which is another example of a non-banking entity to join the consortium. The private blockchain consortium also included its first African member in Absa Bank, its first Chinese member in financial group Pin An and its first Latin American member – the largest private sector bank in the region, Itaú Unibanco. Altogether, the private blockchain consortium now counts over 55 of the world’s biggest banks and financial groups among its members.