Twenty-six companies and organizations are taking part in a blockchain consortium spearheaded by the Japan Exchange Group (JPX).

The capital markets infrastructure-focused project was announced last November, with the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Osaka Exchange, in conjunction with the Japan Securities Clearing Corporation, forming the initial members of the group. On 17th March, a slate of new members was revealed, including Mizuho Bank, Daiwa Securities Group, Merrill Lynch Japan Securities and Nomura Holdings, among others.

The project has attracted the participation of several key regulators, including Japans’s central bank and the Financial Service Agency (FSA), the country’s top markets watchdog. The Japan Securities Dealers Association, an industry self-regulatory organization (SRO), is also taking part.

According to JPX, additional resources are being brought online this month, and that starting in April, software testing amongst the consortium’s stakeholders will begin.

The firm said in its announcement:

“We will be launching a community website for registered participants in March. Furthermore, in terms of the actual testing environment, we plan to release the first user application for this series in April.”

JPX has said in the past that it seeks to explore the distributed ledger technology (DLT) ecosystem for potential applications. Last February, the group announced that it was working with IBM to further experiment with the tech.

That the consortium would grow is perhaps unsurprising, as JPX signaled its intention to expand membership in the months after launch.

“We will seek participation from a wide range of Japanese financial institutions in order to gather broad industrial expertise,” the firm said at the time.

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