MENA’s leading international banking group Bank ABC has joined the blockchain consortium led by financial innovation firm R3.

Headquartered in New York, the consortium counts over 80 of the world’s leading financial institutions among its members and is spearheading research and development of blockchain-inspired distributed ledger technologies (DLT) to build the next generation of financial services infrastructure.

“We are privileged to be part of this prestigious consortium of international banks and financial institutions, which is spearheading a pivotal change in the industry. DLT and blockchain technology has added a new dimension to the evolving FinTech landscape and we are confident that this alliance will propel us further to achieve our strategic goals.” said Sael Al Waary, Deputy Group CEO of Bank ABC. “We are committed to continue to provide our customers with exceptional customer service and innovative financial products. DLT will help us fulfil our promise to clients.”

The Bahrain-based bank is the first MENA financial institution to join R3. Head of Information Technology, Stuart Rennie, added “access to the wealth of knowledge and resources available through the R3 consortium will strengthen Bank ABC to leverage our investment in technology and support the delivery of our digital strategy”.

“We’ve already made substantial progress in our development of distributed ledger technology, with the launch of Corda and numerous successful proof-of-concepts, our open source distributed ledger platform. The addition of Bank ABC marks a significant milestone for R3, becoming our first partner in the Middle East as we continue to expand our global network. We look forward to working with them and extending the benefits of distributed ledger technology even further”, David Rutter, CEO of R3, said.

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