BBVA and Santander Join Launch of EU Blockchain Platform Set in 2019

Banking groups BBVA and Banco Santander have joined the E.U. International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (IATBA) among the first five banks invited to join. The other members of the association have not yet been disclosed.

IATBA is an initiative promoted by the European Blockchain Partnership, it's a collaboration of 27 E.U. countries, including UK, France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Ireland.

The representatives of two Spanish banking groups were invited to an E.U. blockchain roundtable held in Brussels by Mariya Gabriel, the commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, and Roberto Viola, director of the E.U. Department of Communications Networks, Content and Technology.

The IATBA wants to incorporate entities interested in the potential of the blockchain and DLT for the transformation of digital services worldwide

BBVA highlights that it is one of the five banks invited by the European Commission to be part of this association, for their interest and experience in the use of these technologies. The European association could be legally established in the first quarter of 2019

Recently, BBVA carried out a $150 million loan on a private blockchain network through a group of three funding banks including French banking group BNP Paribas and Japan’s bank holding Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG).

Santander is also interested in decentralized technologies as it has recently joined IBM’s Blockchain Platform along with four other banks, and created a research team to explore the use of blockchain in securities trading.