The National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU) has joined Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), becoming the first non-profit financial services trade association to join the blockchain initiative.

Established in February, EEA is an industry-supported initiative to build and promote Ethereum-based technology best practices, open standards and open-source reference architectures. Its members include over 300 organizations in technology, financial services, government, healthcare, energy, pharmaceuticals, and a number of fast-growing Ethereum startups. Some of the prominent members include Microsoft, Intel, Samsung and Accenture.

"NAFCU is pleased to be invited to join Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and we look forward to contributing to one of the world's leading blockchain technology initiatives," said NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger. "With this new partnership, NAFCU hopes to bring critical knowledge of blockchain technology to the credit union industry and create an innovative environment where NAFCU members can inform technology firms of what credit unions need most."

NAFCU is a direct membership association for federally insured credit unions. It is aimed at representing, assisting, educating and informing its member credit unions to help them grow, and help grow the credit union industry.

As part of its membership, NAFCU's Cybersecurity and Payments Committee will engage with EEA to discuss ways for credit unions to get directly involved with the blockchain community.

Earlier this year, NAFCU became the first financial trade organization in the U.S. to join The Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger blockchain project.