“R3 has developed an ecosystem of over 400 companies building on Corda. R3 has worked in step with its ecosystem to deliver solutions that speak directly to industry needs.”
David E. Rutter, CEO of R3, believes that regulated markets will be dramatically transformed in the coming decade. “We have seen the digitization of our global economy accelerating over the last decade and turbo charge during Covid, yet many of the institutions that underpin the financial system have barely changed,” he explains. “Innovative, agile disruptors are racing to displace entrenched players – in payments, lending, collateral management, trade settlement and custody – and that’s just scratching the surface. The big, slow-moving institutions that we have all depended on for decades are uncertain how to adapt to the new digital economy. But if they seize the window before them, not only can they evolve, but they will continue to play a central role in global finance.” This is R3’s specialty. Their trust technology is powered by production-grade distributed ledger and confidential computing platforms, Corda and Conclave, respectively, for direct multi-party applications and secure cross-institutional data sharing. This, combined with their regulated market expertise and vibrant ecosystem, empowers customers to thrive in this new digital-first paradigm.
The success of R3’s Corda and Conclave platforms is a direct product of the culture which David has fostered at R3. This culture seeks to constantly question the market need for R3’s product base and is entirely customer-focused.
To this end, R3 has one of the largest developer communities of any blockchain firm. This developer community has seen Corda go through multiple iterations to maintain the platform’s best-in-class position. R3 has developed an ecosystem of over 400 companies building on Corda. R3 has worked in step with its ecosystem to deliver solutions that speak directly to industry needs. This fostering of innovation across various industries and use cases has seen tangible output through the R3 Development Fund. The fund was set up two years ago and sees R3 invest in the startups it deems most exciting. This is not just limited to the financial services space but across all sectors. The fund has reached USD 10 million to date.
According to David, the blockchain ecosystem is rapidly growing, with the market size expected to grow from USD3 billion in 2020 to USD39.9 billion by 2025. This staggering growth can be attributed to the spike in funding for blockchain products and the increasing popularity of blockchain technology across industries. Businesses must start with the end in mind and have a keen understanding of our strengths and challenges to embark on collaborative endeavors with partners that can help them add value. The alignment of shared objectives and overlapping networks and ecosystems are crucial to finding the right partners in a rapidly growing industry. “Ultimately, real change in financial markets is going to be driven by a combination of technological advances and human ingenuity. At R3, we believe there are three requirements needed to achieve direct, digital collaboration in regulated markets. And only R3 can deliver on them,” adds David.
The first requirement is trust technology. Corda and Conclave, two of their key offerings, are underpinned by production-grade distributed ledger and confidential computing platforms for building multi-party applications and secure cross-institutional data sharing. The second requirement is connected networks. Building ecosystems is in their DNA. R3 began as a consortium backed by the world’s leading banks, and today, they lead one of the largest blockchain production ecosystems in the world with participants from both the private and public sectors. And finally, the third requirement is regulated markets expertise. They have been deeply engaged with regulators and central banks since Day 1 because they recognize that to drive forward transformational change truly, collaboration is needed amongst all parties.
For the days to come, the company is laser-focused on simplifying the development of distributed applications. “We recognize the underlying technology is a means to an end and the real value is in the application or solution you’ve built on top of it,” says David. “Therefore, we need to make it much easier for you to develop solutions faster, and to do that, we’ll be developing standards for how assets are represented and defined, as well as toolkits to model digital assets across the whole lifecycle through to settlement.”
