CULedger, a consortium of credit unions developing distributed ledger technology (DLT) systems, has announced the appointment of a new chief executive officer.

The new hire, John Ainsworth, who was previously Mastercard's executive vice president of North America markets, will be joining the company as president and CEO effective Dec. 18, a company announcement states.

Ainsworth said in the statement that the majority of his financial services career has been involved with helping credit unions meet the needs of its members.

Predicting more change in the next 10 years than we've seen in the past 50 years, Ainsworth further stated:

DLT

will give the credit union industry a competitive edge in the growing financial services sector, he continued, adding: "Credit unions will be able to implement the technology and utilize the current and future applications that run on it."

Unveiled

late last summer, CULedger is backed by over 50 U.S. credit unions that work together to utilize blockchain technology in a bid to improve the functioning of their industry.

Earlier this August, the consortium launched CUSO, a blockchain services business, owned by a group of federally chartered credit unions that offers payment card processing, business loans, among others.

Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, in which Mastercard is an investor. 

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