Ethereum, one of the most popular public blockchain network known for the ability to develop decentralized applications (DApps) and smart contracts, started the world’s largest open-source Blockchain initiative dubbed the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) back in March 2017.

The EEA focuses on the development and implementation of the Ethereum blockchain and its use cases on an Enterprise level. It aims to “define enterprise-grade software capable of handling the most complex, highly demanding applications at the speed of business.”

The consortium started with close to 150 members in the group but has expanded to over 450 enterprise business members, including industry giants like Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, Santander, Accenture, ING, Intel, Cisco and various others. The most recent to join the EEA was International banking group Standard Chartered.

According to a press release published on November 6, Standard Chartered aims to collaborate with other industry leaders in an effort to strengthen research on blockchain technology and its application in the banking sector. It believes that banks view blockchain as the key part of modern-day technology that enables it to verify, secure and process transactions in real-time.

Dr Michael Gorriz, Group Chief Information Officer at Standard Chartered said:

“Technology enables us to facilitate trade and investment across our footprint markets, improving client experiences and offering new services, we are excited to be a part of the EEA and look forward to opportunities where we can collaborate with other leading industry players to deepen blockchain research and application in the banking sector.”

Standard Chartered has been already involved with the blockchain industry prior to the EEA. It was one of the founding members of the blockchain-based open industry platform, Voltron, which was founded in October 2018 “to digitally create, exchange, approve and issue Letters of Credits (LCs),” the release mentioned. The bank has also collaborated with Ant financial to launch the world’s first Hong Kong – Philippines blockchain-enabled cross border remittance service. It has also invested in Ripple, a blockchain-based payments network, back in 2016.

The EEA recently created a token system to reward the contribution of the member organizations and their employees and encourage them. The Tokens are powered by the EEA’s Off-chain Trusted Compute Specification and is secure enough to be used use both within and between different companies.

Paul DiMarzio, EEA’s director of community told Cointelegraph: