American Express has joined a worldwide effort to advance blockchain for the financial services industry and push advancements in Internet of Things technology.
Amex enters the Hyperledger Project, a collaborative cross-industry effort created to advance blockchain technology, as a premier member.
In that role, American Express will contribute to an enterprise-grade, open source, distributed ledger technology. That technology enables organizations to build and run industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support individual business transactions.
Sastry Durvasula, senior vice president of technology for American Express, is responsible for leading enterprise-wide big data, blockchain, digital payments and partnerships. He will represent the company on the Hyperledger governing board.
“It’s always encouraging to see large, global organizations like American Express join Hyperledger,” Brian Behlendorf, executive director of Hyperledger, said in a Jan. 30 press release. “As the project continues to grow and take shape, I believe support from leading organizations and their expertise will drive successful pilots of Hyperledger blockchain technology into production later this year."
The project's goal is to continuously build new systems for an emerging industry and its various use cases and applications, Behlendorf added.
Hyperledger Project has grown to more than 100 members since its inception, spanning various industries including finance, healthcare, the Internet of Things, aeronautics and others.
“As a premier member of the project, we’re expecting our expertise and global reach to help advance this open source blockchain ecosystem,” said Marc Gordon, executive vice president and chief information officer at American Express, in the release.
Earlier this month, the Society for Worldwide Financial Telecommunication, or
