R3 has opened the second round of submissions from companies to join the partnership. This time, the consortium intends to put more emphasis on candidates from the non-banking sector.

The start of the new application period has been officially announced by managing director of the blockchain consortium Charley Cooper. He noted that as of now the number of new participants in the partnership is not limited, although the new round will be focused on attracting non-bank institutions to enter the consortium.

“The strategy hasn’t changed. We had always anticipated having a second round of engagements. We’re now in the process of talking to buy-sides, infrastructure providers and other potential partners,” Cooper told Coindesk.

The first company that applied for partnership in the new round was Japanese financial institution SBI Holdings. The bank announced its participation in the consortium earlier this week. According to Cooper, the second round it is expected to significantly expand the total number of the members as the interest to the blockchain technology is growing.

The fintech company R3CEV initiated the creation of a consortium aimed to explore and develop blockchain technologies. Among the first participants of the partnership, established in September 2015, were the world’s top financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, Barclays. The first round of engagements, ended in December 2015, gathered 42 companies and institutions such as BBVA, Australian Commonwealth Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, State Street, UBS, Mitsubishi UFJ, Citi, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, National Australia Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, SEB, Societé Generale and many others.

The participants collaborate within working groups to apply the blockchain technology to interbank communications and trading process and develop blockchain-based solutions for the global financial industry. Earlier in March, R3 announced the completion of the trial of five cloud-based blockchain technologies. They were successfully tested by 40 banks participating in the consortium.

Elena Platonova