Hitachi, Ltd., a Japanese multinational conglomerate company, has announced its plans to set up Financial Innovation Laboratory, a FinTech research organization in the Silicon Valley office of Hitachi’s Global Center for Social Innovation - North America (CSI-NA) in Santa Clara, California.

The lab is expected to start its operations next month. The new organization will work together with CSI-NA in areas such as research & development of blockchain technology and on “collaborative creation” with financial institutions.

“By establishing the Financial Innovation Laboratory in the Silicon Valley, Hitachi will accelerate research & development of blockchain technology, collaborative creation with customers, and development of solutions to support business innovation in financial institutions”, the release said.

Hitachi established CSI-NA in April 2015 to pursue collaborative creation with strategic partners in the Americas. In addition, it established a new dedicated research facility in Silicon Valley in January 2016, gathering researchers specializing in big data analytics, information and communication systems, and user experience design to accelerate collaborative creation with customers.

The company has been forging ahead in the area of FinTech through various initiatives such as the launch of the “Hitachi Mobile Cash Card Service” in December 2015 in Japan which enables smartphones to be used like cash cards for financial transactions.

Hitachi also joined the “Hyperledger Project,” an open source project established by the Linux Foundation as a board member in February 2016.

“Hitachi would continuously invest our resources and actively support the HyperLedger project. With numerous global organizations backing the effort, we believe blockchain will quickly mature and spread to more industries,” said Masayoshi Ogawa, President of Financial Information Systems Division, Information & Telecommunication Systems Company at Hitachi, Ltd.