Hana Financial Group, one of the largest bank holding companies in Korea, has announced that it has joined the R3 CEV group to apply and standardize innovative financial technologies.

The R3 blockchain consortium has leading financial institutions as its members such as Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, UBS and many more.

According to a report on Korea Herald, Hana Financial has joined the consortium in order to apply emerging blockchain technology into services such as global transactions and security protection. Hana Financial believes that decentralized storage of financial information and records using blockchain technology can prevent hacking and manipulation.

“Hana Financial will use blockchain technology in an effort to further map out its global expansion strategy,” Hana Financial said in a press statement.

Established in 2005, Hana Financial Group is expanding its global presence through its combined overseas network, the largest in Korea. It contributes to the development of the financial industry by formulating sound management and growth strategies for its subsidiaries – KEB Hana Bank, Hana Financial Investment, Hana Savings Bank, and BNB Hana Bank, all dealing with product sales; KEB Hana Card, the investment banking division of Hana Financial Investment, Hana Life, Hana Capital, and Hana Asset Trust, all dealing with product development; the Hana Institute of Finance, the group's think tank; and Hana I&S, the IT-services unit.

R3 blockchain consortium concluded its first distributed ledger bank membership round in December 2015. The second round was officially opened last month and SBI Holdings was the first to sign on. R3 managing director Charley Cooper told CoinDesk at the time that there was no quota set on the number of new partners, and reiterated R3’s plans about adding non-bank members.