ING Bags Unlimited Corda Licenses From R3

ING Bank announced Tuesday (Jan. 22) a five-year agreement with blockchain company R3 allowing the financial institution to access an unlimited number of licenses from the Corda Enterprise platform.

According to the announcement, ING will be allowed to access Corda Enterprise and deploy Corda applications across its global back-office operations, including trade finance, insurance, identity management and more. The agreement signals a significant push within blockchain for ING.

“Our longstanding joint journey with R3 has proven that this is the most mature enterprise [distributed ledger technology] solution to serve the needs of the financial service industry,” said ING Head of Innovation for Wholesale Banking Annerie Vreugdenhil in a statement. “Strengthening our partnership, by signing this licensing agreement, makes a huge milestone towards empowering clients to transition to a distributed economy.”

Vreugdenhil added that the agreement with R3 to integrate Corda blockchain technology in its own operations is a step toward the bank rolling out blockchain tools for its own clients.

In another statement, R3 CEO David E. Rutter noted ING’s early embrace of blockchain technology, particularly in the trade finance space with ING among the first partners for R3’s Project Voltron initiative.

Last October R3 announced a collaboration with Intellect Global Transaction Banking (iGTB), a banking technology provider that is working with the blockchain firm to develop corporate financial services tools using the Corda blockchain platform.

Other banking partners for R3 include BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank, with R3 focusing on deploying Corda to create compliance solutions in areas like Know Your Customer (KYC) for financial institutions.

ING recently agreed to pay about $900 million to settle an investigation by Dutch authorities related to money laundering. Regulators were probing the institution on suspicion of failing to report suspicious transactions in a timely fashion. In a statement at the time, ING acknowledged “serious shortcomings” in its due diligence efforts between 2010 and 2016.