Financial services giant Mizuho has announced a second blockchain technology trial to be focused on syndicated loans.

Announced on 16th February, the project finds Mizuho uniting with other Japan-based companies, including Information Services International-Dentsu (ISID), blockchain startup Currency Port and Microsoft Japan Co, the local subsidiary of the US tech giant.

ISID corporate communications officer Kayoko Lee said that the trial is still in early stages, as the partners seek first to “verify the applicability” of the technology to the post-trade process using Microsoft’s blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) offering.

Lee told CoinDesk:

“We deepen understanding of these advanced technologies through this experiment, and aim to create the new service models which bring financial innovation.”

The news follows Mizuho’s partnership with IT consulting firm Cognizant, which will find it working on blockchain applications for internal record-keeping, and further, comes at a time when a number of startups are seeking to apply blockchain tech to syndicated loans.

Both Digital Asset Holdings and itBit, for example, list syndicated loans among their business offerings, with the two companies accounting for nearly $90m in total fundraising.

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