SBI Securities, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japanese financial giant SBI Group, has announced a securities consortium that will be launched in collaboration with 35 firms.

Earlier in January, the initiative was announced with 18 Japanese securities firms. SBI said that since then many securities companies and securities affiliates have joined the effort, bringing the total to 35 founding companies.

The consortium will explore the potential applications of cutting edge technologies such as distributed ledger technology (DLT), biometric authentication, artificial intelligence, and others in the securities industry.

“By gathering the knowledge of each company in the securities industry participating in the consortium…we aim to commercialize these technologies at an early stage, aim to reduce costs by streamlining the efficiency of participating companies, and improve the convenience of securities services,” the official release said (loosely translated).

“The securities consortium will examine various technologies for research and commercialization, but focuses on the possibility of distributed ledger technology in particular.”

The consortium will test DLT in areas such as know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) measures.