Barclays Plc and Citigroup Inc are two of the nine financial institutions that will be involved in the testing. In an email, Lee Braine from the chief technology office at Barclays, said that "Barclays is participating in the LedgerConnect proof-of-concept so we can gain an understanding and experience of a new network for blockchain applications – and also test some candidate use cases on that network."
The development and testing of individual applications by banks is quite costly and time consuming. According to Alan Marquard, chief strategy and development officer at CLS, one of the benefits of a shared platform run by an "existing market structure provider" is that applications from different vendors can be vetted to ensure they meet the financial institutions' security and technology standards. IBM and CLS aim to make the platform widely available to the industry after testing is concluded (if there is enough market demand to do so).
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