Life insurance group AIA joins R3 blockchain consortium

AIA Group has joined the global blockchain consortium led by New York-based blockchain startup R3.

The announcement comes at a time when R3 is increasing its presence in Asia as well as diversifying its portfolio of participating financial institutions, having added China-based Ping An Insurance Group to its consortium in late May.

“Distributed ledger technology or blockchain offers significant opportunities to the life and health insurance industry. R3 provides us the possibility to understand together with other leading global organisations in financial services the potential applications of blockchain technology around the world and particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. We look forward to taking a leadership role in exploring how this technology might result in increased efficiency and improved service for our customers,” said Simeon Preston, AIA’s group chief operations officer.

AIA Group is a Hong Kong-based life insurance company.