Financial news outlet Forbes has released a list of “Blockchain’s Billion Dollar Babies,” or companies implementing blockchain technology that have minimum revenues or valuations of $1 billion, on April 16. The list includes companies in the cryptocurrency and blockchain development spaces, in addition to traditional financial firms like banks and clearing houses, food companies, supply chain management firms and others. Most of the companies listed are household names like Amazon, Walmart, Facebook, ING, Mastercard, Microsoft and Nestle. Cryptocurrency-related companies featured on the list include United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, European mining and hardware firm Bitfury, and blockchain-based financial services network …

Two major United Kingdom banks — Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) — have joined a trial using blockchain to streamline real estate purchasing after rethinking the technology’s potential, Bloomberg reported on April 4. The trial, which involved a total of 40 participants, used a tool from Instant Property Network (IPN), a startup using enterprise blockchain group R3’s Corda platform. Introducing blockchain into the real estate exchange arena worldwide could result in savings of $160 billion, IPN told Bloomberg, with the previously skeptical banks appearing to warm to this specific use case for blockchain. “We are near the end …

Blockchain consortium R3’s trade finance platform Marco Polo has completed its first real transactions, a press release from Commerzbank, one of the participants, confirmed on March 28. Marco Polo, which is built on R3 enterprise blockchain platform Corda, successfully facilitated a trade between Germany and China, involving two German firms. Tech group Voith and pump manufacturer KSB SE were the initiators of the transactions, which constituted a pilot scheme for Marco Polo. One transaction saw couplings delivered from Germany to China, while a second was based on hydraulic pumps delivered solely within Germany. The banks facilitating the operation were German …

Switzerland's principal stock exchange, SIX Swiss Exchange, has chosen to use blockchain consortium R3’s Corda Enterprise platform for its forthcoming blockchain-powered digital exchange. The news was revealed during the R3-hosted Corda Day event in Singapore on March 6. The SIX Swiss Exchange sees roughly 4.62 billion Swiss Francs (CHF) (~$4.6 billion) in daily turnover, and has a market capitalization of over 1.67 trillion CHF ~($1.6 trillion). As Cointelegraph reported in July 2018, SIX previously unveiled its plans to launch a digital asset ecosystem, dubbed Six Digital Exchange (SDX). In February 2019, the company announced it would be testing blockchain integration …

Software development company MonetaGo has switched over from Hyperledger Fabric to R3’s Corda as an enterprise blockchain platform, economics magazine Global Trade Review (GTR) reported on Feb. 26. MonetaGo, which previously had ties with both platforms, will now use Corda as it continues its expansion into Mexico and other international markets ahead of a current trial in India. The company offers blockchain-based fraud mitigation solutions for banks and previously operated as a cryptocurrency exchange before changing direction. “With the new deployments that we have coming up in Mexico, as well in other Latin American countries, the regulators themselves have been …

German banking and financial services company Commerzbank and technology companies Continental and Siemens have jointly conducted a money market security transaction pilot using blockchain technology. Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reported on the development on Feb. 21. Money market securities are short-terms assets that serve for financing companies and usually have a maturity of one year or less. Usually, the processing of a payment takes two days due to a clearing process. The aforementioned parties “for the first time” conducted a blockchain-based money market security transaction worth 100,000 euro ($113,340) within a pilot project in January, where Continental acted as the issuer …

Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO and representative director of Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings, has singled out Ripple (XRP) and blockchain consortium R3 as reasons to remain optimistic about the future of the crypto industry — bear market notwithstanding. Kitao made his remarks during an interview with Japanese crypto news outlet Coin Post on Feb. 18. SBI Holdings is an active partner of Ripple via their joint venture, “SBI Ripple Asia,” established to promote the use of XRP in Asian financial markets back in 2016. In his interview with Coin Post, Kitao underscored that the protracted crypto market slump is not …

The Italian Banking Association (ABI) is now testing a blockchain interbank solution based on blockchain consortium R3’s open-source distributed ledger platform Corda, fintech news outlet FinExtra reports on Wednesday, Feb. 13. The ABI states that the platform has been developed together with its technical partners — R3, Japanese IT firm NTT Data and Italian ICT company Sia. The project, dubbed “Spunta,” is reportedly now being tested by 18 banks that represent 78 percent of the Italian banking sector by number of employees. As Cointelegraph previously reported, the blockchain-powered interbank system by the ABI successfully passed the initial phase of testing …

The Wall Street Blockchain Alliance (WSBA) has joined blockchain consortium R3 to develop applications and solutions on their Corda platform, a Feb. 5 press release reports. According to a statement made by the CEO of R3, David E. Rutter, the WSBA and R3 will collaborate in order to “advocate a strategic approach to collaborating with regulatory bodies so that financial markets, and beyond can gain the full benefits of blockchain’s capabilities.” The WSBA is a non-profit trade association that promotes the general adoption of blockchain technology and crypto assets across international markets. R3, an enterprise blockchain software firm with over …

Japanese finance giant SBI Holdings has released its nine-month financial report today, Jan. 31. In the report for the period ending on Dec. 31, 2018, SBI notes Ripple’s potential for cross-border payments. SBI outlines the implementation of technologies by Ripple (XRP) and blockchain consortium R3 as a major part of its strategy to enable a global standard for financial operations such as international payments and trade finance. In the section titled “Business Area Separation of Ripple and R3,” SBI featured Ripple as an entity “specializing in international remittance,” while R3 is responsible for developing projects that “are not limited to …

Japanese financial services company SBI Holdings has officially announced a joint agreement with the United States blockchain consortium R3 to work in Japan, according to a press release published on Jan. 29. Back in December, SBI Holdings had already revealed its plans — according to an interview with R3’s CEO — to partner with software enterprise R3 to develop local use of its Corda blockchain platform, Cointelegraph reported on Dec. 6. Yesterday’s press release was an official announcement of the partnership. SBI Holdings and R3’s joint agreement aims to promote the development of financial services backed with distributed ledger technologies …

United States-based credit union service organization CULedger has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round for its credit union-focused blockchain platform, according to a press release published Jan. 29. The company, which is a member of R3’s global blockchain ecosystem, first announced its funding round and its goal of raising $10 million in October, 2017. According to the release, the now closed funding round included 40 investors, noting that the “majority of investors are credit unions.” Following a successful round, CULedger will soon launch its flagship product, MyCUID. According to the project’s website, it is a distributed ledger-based …