Dutch banking and financial services group ING has inked a five-year licensing deal with blockchain consortium startup R3 for use of its Corda Enterprise platform.

R3 announced Tuesday that the deal will provide ING with an “unlimited” number of licenses for the Corda platform, allowing the bank to deploy its blockchain tech and “production-ready" CorDapps (or Corda Distributed Applications) across its international business operations.

CorDapps cover various financial services activities, including trade finance, identity, insurance and capital markets, according to the announcement.

R3 CEO David Rutter said:

The licencing agreement marks a "huge milestone" towards transitioning the bank's clients to a distributed economy, said Annerie Vreugdenhil, head of innovation for wholesale banking at ING. "We are one step closer to deploying live DLT solutions for our clients with the supported infrastructure in place."

This is not the first time ING has partnered with R3. Last month, the bank, along with three other European banks – Commerzbank, Natixis and Rabobank – settled a live transaction for a one-day maturity euro commercial paper worth €100,000 (or $1,13,432) on the Corda platform.

Back in February, ING also successfully completed a proof-of-concept project for trade finance using R3’s blockchain tech, along with BNP and Commerzbank.

R3 launched its Corda Enterprise platform in July of last year, after more than a year in development. Corda is an open-source blockchain platform offering added features including 24/7 support, disaster recovery, blockchain application firewall, and more.

ING image via Shutterstock