ABN AMRO , the Dutch state-owned bank that serves retail, private and corporate banking clients, has announced that it has joined R3 blockchain consortium that has over 60 of the world’s largest financial institutions to develop blockchain-based ground-breaking commercial applications for the financial services industry.

“This is exactly the right time for us to step in. We already spend a lot of time developing and testing new technologies, on our own and together with other parties. One such example is the ‘distributed trust technology’, also known as blockchain technology. R3 offers the scale and organization to develop ‘finance grade’ applications at a broad and international level based on this new technology. ABN AMRO is keen to act on these developments and lift its knowledge of block chain to a higher level,” Arjan van Os, head of ABN AMRO’s Innovation Centre said in a release.

Apart from R3 membership, ABN AMRO also participated in other consortiums, including Digital Asset Holdings and the Linux Hyperledger Project, to further develop blockchain and other technologies. It has also collaborated with experiments on the Ethereum platform in various fields.

ABN AMRO co-organized the first Hyperledger Hackathon for blockchain applications, along with IBM, Holland Fintech and the Linux Foundation, and recently announced the winner. The Dutch bank also collaborated with Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), a Netherland-based technology university, in order to develop more complex blockchain applications.