According to latest report from Profit & Loss, AIA Group, an Asian life insurance company, has joined the global blockchain consortium led by innovation firm R3 that aims to design and deliver advanced distributed/shared ledger technologies to global financial markets.

“Distributed ledger technology or blockchain offers significant opportunities to the life and health insurance industry,” says Simeon Preston, AIA’s group chief operations officer. “R3 provides us the possibility to understand together with other leading global organisations in financial services the potential applications of blockchain technology around the world and particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. We look forward to taking a leadership role in exploring how this technology might result in increased efficiency and improved service for our customers.”

In December 2015, the blockchain consortium had announced that it has concluded its distributed ledger bank membership round and suggested that it plans on broader engagement with a diverse range of institutions outside of the banking industry.

AIA is the latest to join the consortium that opened its second round of engagements earlier in March. The company will be joining forces with the leading member banks of the group to develop commercial applications for the financial services industry, leveraging distributed and shared ledger technology.

“The addition of AIA represents another step in the diversification of our growing member network. By collaborating with a broad range of non-bank institutions in addition to our extensive banking partners we will ensure the technology being developed in our lab represents the different interests and requirements of the vast array of players in the global financial ecosystem”, David Rutter, CEO of R3, said.

The consortium has been frequently in news since the beginning of this year. In January, it announced successful completion of the first blockchain experiment with 11 consortium member banks, followed by the successful trial of five distinct blockchain technologies in parallel in the first test of its kind. In April, R3 introduced Corda – a distributed ledger platform designed from the ground up to record, manage and synchronise financial agreements between regulated financial institutions.