Another R3 Exit: Spanish Bank Santander Quits Blockchain Consortium
Banco Santander, one of the early participants of the R3 blockchain consortium has abandoned the working group, joining investment banking institution Goldman Sachs in departure. The Spanish banking giant’s decision to let its R3 membership lapse is the second high-profile exit from the working group and comes in the months after it roped in Blythe Masters for a blockchain advisory role at the bank. Masters is the chief executive at Digital Asset, a startup that is arguably R3’s competitor in developing blockchain solutions for the financial services industry. Santander is the second major....
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Spanish banking giant Banco Santander is no longer a member of the R3 blockchain consortium, CoinDesk has learned. The news comes hours after it was revealed that Goldman Sachs, one of the original 12 members of the consortium effort, would depart the group. At press time, Goldman Sachs has not yet stated its reason for leaving, though it is known R3 is now soliciting as much as $150m in funding from its members. A spokesperson for Santander was similarly tight-lipped about the bank's decision to leave, indicating he could not provide more details about its departure. He told CoinDesk:....
In less than a day of Goldman Sachs' departure, Santander has made its decision to separate from R3 consortium public. Banco Santander (BME:SAN) has become the latest financial institution to exit R3CEV’s much marketed blockchain consortium. Only less than 24 hours ago, American multinational Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) had confirmed dropping out of the aforementioned Wall Street blockchain league. The company, in its press statement, had cited its indifferences with R3 members regarding the upcoming equity funding round as its major reason to dropout from the group. It has been published that....
Banco Santander UK has made available to its staff a mobile application which uses Blockchain to transfer money. In the battle among bankers to implement blockchain solutions to cut costs, has Banco Santander taken the lead? Ed Metzger, head of innovation technology and operations at Santander U.K., says to Bloomberg: “It’s the first time a U.K. bank has sent payments of this type via Ripple and launched it as a commercial service. Many people are doing lab style experiments, the key difference here is about getting real people to send real money for real purposes. I just paid my wife, who....
Spanish banking giant Santander is working on a project that explores how it could digitize customer cash using the public ethereum blockchain. Revealed today during a panel talk at Devcon2 by Ether.camp founder and ethereum Java client developer Roman Mandeleil, the news was confirmed by representatives of Santander. In statements, Santander said its goal is to open up its bank-issued funds to a community of innovators as a way of tapping additional efficiencies. Given the recent deluge of proofs-of-concepts and consortium announcements, Santander's move to potentially issue digital cash....
Spanish megabank Santander has been experimenting with blockchain technology. Its head of research and development will discuss applications of the technology at Consensus 2015. Twenty billion dollars a year - that's how much banks could save on cross-border payments, compliance and securities trading if they used blockchain tech to move money and assets around the world, according to a report co-written by Spanish megabank Santander published last month. Julio Faura is one of the Santander executives playing a crucial role in making that massive cost-saving a reality. He commissioned a....