R3 Blasts JP Morgan Consortium Exit as 'At Odds' With Global Banks

JP Morgan has officially exited the global bank consortium led by distributed ledger startup R3.

A representative of the bank confirmed the departure when reached, but declined further comment. The news was first reported by Reuters earlier today.

The move comes months after the financial institution was rumored to be one of a group of banks looking to exit R3's funding round, though it was reported to still be a member of the consortium at the time. Banco Santander and Goldman Sachs exited the initiative fully in November of last year.

The exit is notable as JP Morgan was among the initial group of banks to join the consortium, launched as a collaborative effort between institutions through which they tested a number of applications.

When reached for comment, R3 managing director Charley Cooper painted the move as one that makes JP Morgan an outlier among its global peers.

He told CoinDesk:

"JP Morgan parted ways with R3 to pursue a very distinct technology path which is at odds with what the global financial services industry, represented by our 80-plus members, have chosen."

In recent months, JP Morgan has pursued a more singular technology strategy.

For example, CoinDesk reported in February that JPMorgan was one of the backers of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, an effort aimed at creating enterprise technology solutions based on the open-source ethereum blockchain.

JPMorgan has also invested in its own distributed ledger tech.

Called Quorum, the technology was introduced via a meeting with Hyperledger's technical steering committee, though here too the bank has not yet submitted its project for incubation. The bank is also a contributing member of the Linux Foundation-led Hyperledger project.

Michael del Castillo contributed reporting.

JPMorgan image via Shutterstock