American Express Named Premier Member Of Hyperledger Project

Hyperledger Project, a group created to advance blockchain technology, announced on Monday (Jan. 30) that American Express has joined the group as a Premier Member.

In a report, Hyperledger Project said that, by joining the group as a Premier Member, American Express will be part of developing the mission to create an enterprise-grade, open-source distributed ledger technology.

“It’s always encouraging to see large, global organizations like American Express join Hyperledger,” said Brian Behlendorf, executive director of Hyperledger. “As the project continues to grow and take shape, I believe support from leading organizations and their expertise will drive successful pilots of Hyperledger blockchain technology into production later this year. The aim is to then begin to repeatedly build new systems for this emerging industry and its various use cases and applications.”

Sastry Durvasula, SVP of technology at American Express, who is responsible for enterprise-wide Big Data, blockchain and digital payments and partnerships, will represent the credit card company on the Hyperledger Governing Board.

“We’re excited to join Hyperledger, as we’re looking to take full advantage of blockchain to deliver new and innovative products for our customers and partners, while transforming existing business processes and applications,” said Marc Gordon, EVP and chief information officer of American Express, in the same report. “As a Premier Member of the project, we’re expecting our expertise and global reach to help advance this open-source blockchain ecosystem.”

Since its inception, Hyperledger Project has morphed into more than 100 members covering a host of industries, including finance, health care, the Internet of Things and aeronautics, among several others. The goal of the project is to create common distributed ledger technology that provides companies with the ability to build and run industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems.