B3i (Blockchain Insurance Industry Initiative), a consortium of several European insurance companies which was formed in 2016 to investigate blockchain applications for that industry, has decided to use the Corda platform to build its network, according to an official press release.

The release says that after reviewing and comparing the data privacy and scalability offered by various open source blockchains, B3i concluded that Corda is the best available.

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Since May 2018 B3i has operated through an independent company called B3i Services AG. It launched a separate entity so that it could be in charge of its own money and intellectual property.

Corda is a blockchain platform designed specifically for the financial industry, enabling institutions to transact directly with each other via smart contracts. Its developers say that it will have wider applications too. Version 1.0 was released in October 2016.

Corda was designed by R3 – a New York-based software firm which runs a distributed ledger technology research consortium of more than 200 major firms, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, HSBC, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Deutsche Bank, Bangkok Bank and Royal Bank of Canada.

In May 2017, R3 raised $107 million in investment money, which was at the time the largest amount given to a blockchain technology startup. In May 2018 it got $5 million from settlement services provider CLS.

In November 2017, R3 revealed a Corda-based cross-border payment system that it had developed with 22 of its members. It is unique because it is designed to interact with cryptocurrencies created by central banks. No such coin has been created as yet, but several national banks (such as those of Russia, Venezuela, and Estonia) have expressed an interest in doing so.

Markus Tradt, CTO of B3i, said: “The Corda platform offers the optimal solution in the market to deliver the B3i roadmap and our industrywide insurance blockchain ecosystem. We are very excited to continue our work with the Corda team.”

Richard Gendal Brown, CTO of R3, said: “We are delighted that B3i has selected Corda as its preferred platform and our engineering team is looking forward to working closely with the excellent team at B3i to bring their innovative solutions to market.