Five leading British fund houses have formed a consortium to study the benefits of blockchain integration. They are considering using blockchain to make asset transfer more efficient. 

According to The Financial Times, the group includes Schroders, Aberdeen Asset Management, Columbia Threadneedle, Aviva Investors and Henderson Global Investors. The estimate for all assets under the control of the firms surpasses $1.4 trillion.

The companies are interested in the use of blockchain for asset management and asset transfer. The present aim of the project is to establish whether such applications have “a commercial benefit in the long term.”

Currently the representatives of the newly-found consortium lead consultations with fintech companies and startups.

The consortiums gain momentum as a strategy to investigate possible benefits of blockchain. R3CEV is the most notable example: 42 banks are going to create a blockchain equivalent for internal communication and trade as well as to build commercial applications. Accumulated potential is supposed to outweigh comparative slowness caused by the multiplicity of actors.

“In some forms, the technology could primarily serve to improve efficiency in the back offices of financial institutions and exchanges. Several startups were founded with that objective. Or the technology could be the means by which new players unseat entrenched institutions,” noted Head of Research at R3CEV Tim Swanson in his interview to the Brookings Institution.

Roman Korizky