A distributed ledger made up of mutually distrusting nodes would
allow for a single global database that records the state of deals and obligations
between institutions and people. This would eliminate much of
the manual, time consuming effort currently required to keep disparate
ledgers synchronised with each other. It would also allow for greater levels
of code sharing than presently used in the financial industry, reducing
the cost of financial services for everyone. We present Corda, a platform
which is designed to achieve these goals. This paper provides a high
level introduction intended for the general reader. A forthcoming technical
white paper elaborates on the design and fundamental architectural
decisions.
Here is the official blog post by Richard G Brown, Chief Technology Officer at R3.
Here is the whitepaper
Who is Mike Hearn?
He is the author of BitcoinXT (alternative software to BitcoinCore) and other interesting initiatives. Sad he left bitcoin space, at least he is still working on blockchain related projects.