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Five more banks have joined the global consortium of banks developing blockchain technology, which underpins bitcoin digital currency, bringing the total to 30 financial entities.

The banks that have just joined the consortium are BNP Paribas, Wells Fargo, ING, MacQuarie and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Most of the world's leading banks have now entered the initiative, including Barclays, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Commerzbank and others.

All five newcomers have had an experience with bitcoin in the past. A research analyst with BNP Paribas Securities Service recently published his prognosis for the further development of bitcoin and blockchain. Dutch ING Bank confirmed the right of its clients to buy bitcoin after a series of customer complaints. Last year Wells Fargo launched a working group to investigate the risks of bitcoin-related businesses. The chief executive of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) has made a statement that the bank is studying bitcoin for its own benefits. Finally, Australian MacQuarie bank has suffered from attacks by a criminal group of hackers who demanded bitcoins.

The consortium is the initiative of the fintech company R3 with the purpose to develop common standards and applications of the blockchain technology for the international fintech community.

“The combined strength of our technology team and the diverse global footprint of our member banks – now including five more members – clearly differentiates us and puts us in a unique and exciting position within the distributed ledger space. The R3 collaborative model is the best way to quickly, efficiently and cost effectively deliver these new technologies to global financial markets. We look forward to welcoming more players to our growing team as the initiative continues to develop and evolve,” said David Rutter, CEO of R3.

The news about five new members of the initiative coincided with new appointments at R3 across New York, San Francisco and London offices. Mike Hearn, an acknowledged bitcoin developer, has joined the company's team as Director and Lead Platform Manager. Hearn used to be a senior software engineer at Google and developer at Andreessen Horowitz.

Sonya Belova