Press Release

AIFC Astana Financial Services Authority Joins R3 Distributed Ledger Group

PRESS-RELEASE

9 October, 2017

Today, AIFC Astana Financial Services Authority announces it has joined R3’s collaborative initiative to design and apply distributed ledger technologies (DLT) to build the next generation of financial services infrastructure.

AIFC will collaborate with over 100 of the world’s largest financial institutions to develop groundbreaking commercial applications for the financial services industry that leverage the appropriate elements of DLT.

The R3 team of financial industry veterans, technologists and cryptocurrency experts collaborate with members on research, experimentation, design and engineering to help advance this technology to meet banking requirements for identity, privacy, security, scalability, interoperability and integration with legacy systems.

As members of R3, regulators from across the globe have an opportunity to participate in the research and testing of distributed ledger technologies and to share their experience and knowledge in this direction.

Astana International Financial Center will work closely with R3 and its members to continue the development of Corda™, an open source distributed ledger platform for recording, managing and synchronising financial agreements. Corda is heavily inspired by and captures the benefits of blockchain systems, but with design choices that make it able to meet the needs of regulated financial institutions.

David E. Rutter, CEO of R3 comments: «We are excited to welcome AIFC to our rapidly growing global network of members. Their knowledge and expertise in Central Asia will be invaluable as we work together to build cutting-edge distributed ledger infrastructure based on Corda.”

 For references:

 AIFC. In December 2015 President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev signed the Constitutional Statute “On the Astana International Financial Centre” (AIFC). The aim of the AIFC is to establish a leading international centre of financial services. For the first time in the post-Soviet region, a common law framework will be introduced in the AIFC. English shall be the official language of the AIFC.

The objectives of the AIFC are to attract investment into the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan through the establishment of an attractive environment for investment in financial services, to develop local capital markets, ensuring their integration with the international capital markets, and develop markets for insurance and banking services and for Islamic financing in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

R3. R3 is an enterprise software firm working with over 100 banks, financial institutions, regulators, trade associations, professional services firms and technology companies to develop Corda, its distributed ledger platform designed specifically for financial services. R3’s global team of over 140 professionals in 9 countries is supported by over 2,000 technology, financial, and legal experts drawn from its global member base. R3 recently announced the successful completion of the first 2 of 3 tranches in a Series A fundraise valued at USD 107 million.

Corda is the outcome of over two years of intense research and development by R3 and its members and meets the highest standards of the banking industry, yet is applicable to any commercial scenario. With Corda, participants can transact without the need for central authorities, creating a world of frictionless commerce.