Russian Payments Firm QIWI Joins R3 Blockchain Consortium

Russian payments firm QIWI has joined the R3 blockchain consortium.

Announced earlier this week, the move is the latest for the firm that made waves earlier this year when it announced its plans to pursue the creation of a digital currency. QIWI has since outlined how it plans to potentially replace aspects of its core infrastructure using the technology, a process that it said could play out over the next five years.

In statements, the company expressed hope that some of the in-house projects it has developed can be applied to some of work being conducted among R3's global banking membership.

QIWI CEO Sergey Solonin was quoted as saying:

"We believe that blockchain projects that we are currently working on can be applied on one of the R3 platforms and have great potential to be favorably perceived by regulated financial institutions."

Launched last year, the R3 consortium has more than 60 financial institutions among its ranks. To date, members have pursued a series of distributed ledger tests focused on areas like trade finance and the exchange of commercial debt.

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