US Credit Union Service CULedger joins R3 blockchain consortium

CULedger, a credit union service organization (CUSO) centering on distributed ledger technology (DLT), has become a member of the global blockchain consortium driven by the R3 software company blockchain.

The CULedger program was divulged in 2016 by the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), a non-profit group that serves nearly 7,000 credit unions in the United States.

CUNA Strategic Services and Credit Union Strategic Partners and coordinated by CUNA, the Mountain West CU Association and the Best Innovation Group are founding members. CULedger, who joined the blockchain project Hyperledger earlier this year, raised $ 8.5 million in Series A in August.

In February 2018, Evernym partnered to launch a new consumer- focused digital identity solution called MyCUID to protect credit union members from financial fraud and identity theft. It is currently implementing the MyCUID pilot program.

John Ainsworth, president and chief operating officer of CULedger said “We are very excited to work with R3 in some capacity. Being part of this vast ecosystem will play a part in our ability to develop additional use cases beyond digital identities for credit unions and their members. We are looking forward to continuing our relationship with R3 as CULedger moves out of the pilot stage.”

The global network of R3 is comprised of more than 200 of the world’s largest financial services companies, technology companies, central banks, regulators and trade associations working on Corda together. Corda Enterprise, a commercial distribution of Corda optimized to meet the needs of complex institutions, has recently been launched.

David E. Rutter, CEO of R3, said “Corda’s unique approach to privacy and security will enable CULedger to develop ground-breaking blockchain-based applications for self-sovereign digital identity and fraud detection. We look forward to working with them to create significant efficiencies for credit unions and their members.”