Ping An joins global blockchain alliance R3, becoming the first member from China

On May 24, a reporter from The Paper learned that Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. announced a partnership with R3, a leading blockchain technology company, and officially joined the R3 distributed ledger alliance, becoming the company's first member from China.

Ping An will join R3 to work with more than 40 of the world's largest financial institutions to develop pioneering business applications based on distributed shared ledger technology for the financial services industry. Ping An is joining the R3 global partner network based on the R3 Lab and Research Centre, which has quickly become the focus of collaborative development and testing of distributed shared ledger technology.

“Ping An Group has always been actively applying cutting-edge technology and innovation to its banking, insurance, investment and internet businesses. We are excited to join R3 and look forward to developing and applying blockchain technology to create more efficient end-to-end digital management of financial assets,” said Sylvia Chan, Chief Operating Officer of Ping An Group.

David Rutter, founder and CEO of R3, said: “The addition of Ping An is an important milestone in our journey to grow a network of members that represents the interests of banks and financial institutions around the world. We look forward to working with them to develop the next generation of financial services technology.”

Ping An’s joining R3 is no accident. Previously, an insider of Ping An revealed to The Paper that Ping An has always paid attention to the latest innovative technologies and has communicated with Deloitte, which is at the forefront of blockchain, to understand the latest trends and possible application directions. As a fully licensed financial group, Ping An Group has a wide range of possible areas for applying blockchain technology, which can be said to have an inherent advantage.

In September 2015, R3 CEV was officially established. Its core functions are to formulate industry standards for the development of blockchain technology in the banking industry, explore practical use cases, and establish a blockchain organization in the banking industry.

Previously, the R3 Alliance completed two rounds of tests with large-scale participation of financial institutions. The banks that joined the alliance basically include the top 50 banks in the world except China.

The distributed ledger system tested by five blockchain vendors and three cloud computing providers. The five vendors providing blockchain technology to the alliance are Chain, Ethereum, Eris Industries, IBM and Intel. The cloud infrastructure is provided by Amazon, IBM and Microsoft Corporation.

As of early 2016, R3 has 42 founding partners: Citi, Credit Suisse, Danske Bank, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ING Bank, Santander, Bank of America, Barclays, BBVA, BMO Financial Group, BNP Paribas, Bank of New York Mellon, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Intesa Sanpaolo, Macquarie Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group, Morgan Stanley, National Australia Bank, Nomura Securities, Northern Trust, Scotiabank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Royal Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Scotland, Societe Generale, SEB, Toronto-Dominion Bank, UBS, UniCredit, U.S. Banco, Wells Fargo and Westpac.