According to latest reports, financial innovation firm R3 has welcomed a new member to the blockchain consortium that has more than 50 of the world's largest financial institutions among its membership.

Thomson Reuters has become the first data provider to join the R3 blockchain consortium, Finance Magnates reported. Thomson Reuters' customer solutions manager Mark Rodrigues said that the firm has been collaborating with customers on blockchain and distributed ledger initiatives and powerful proof-of-concept projects for some time now, City AM reported.

“The opportunities afforded by this emerging technology are enormously exciting for us and for our customers," he said, as quoted by City AM. "Our goal with R3 is to collaborate together with the consortium and our customers in these key industry discussions as we shape the future of financial transactions.” 

R3 CEO David Rutter said that the addition of Thomson Reuters is a “significant milestone” for the consortium. 

“Distributed and shared ledger-based solutions hold the potential to transform the technology used by financial market participants to execute trades and access market data," he said. "Thomson Reuters’ insight and expertise in this field will be an invaluable asset in our collaborative lab environment.”

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.