SBI Holdings, a financial services giant in Japan, has entered into a joint venture with US distributed ledger technology (DLT) company R3 which will conduct business in Japan to promote the latter’s open source blockchain Corda platform.

SBI’s announcement (Jan 29) said the venture will introduce licensing of Corda for new customers and promote collaboration with R3’s overseas offices of R3 and other Corda partners. The joint venture also intends to develop its business across East Asia.

R3 claims it has more than 300 partners from various industries around the world, including central banks and regulatory agencies, who participate in an R3-led consortium. R3 conducts projects in business areas utilizing DLT such as syndicated loans, trade finance, insurance, real estate, and supply chains.

Through the joint venture, SBI Holdings has now become R3’s largest shareholder outside the US with its 60% stake in their collaboration. R3 owns the remaining 40%. The venture launched with a capital of JPY500 million ($4.57 million).

This is not the first time SBI has worked with R3. Last April, its Russian commercial bank subsidiary SBI Bank LLC joined R3’s Corda platform.

SBI has been expanding its presence in blockchain-based finance. Earlier this month, TheCryptoSight reported SBI pumping in $15 million each into crypto wallet companies BRD and Tangem, following similar such investments in the previous year. SBI also collaborated with Ripple in October 2018 to launch an app called MoneyTap for blockchain money transferring.