South African Bank Joins R3 Blockchain Consortium
One of South Africa’s largest banks has joined the global blockchain consortium led by R3CEV.

One of South Africa's largest banks has joined the global blockchain consortium led by R3CEV.
Absa Bank, a subsidiary of Barclays Africa, announced today that it would be joining the 40-plus consortium, which includes a range of banks and non-bank financial institutions worldwide. Recent participants have included Chinese bank Ping An and the financial arm of automaker Toyota.
The partnership is said to include an effort to develop a broader working group within South Africa focused on regional distributed ledger networks, with the goal of creating "the continent’s first distributed ledger-based banking solution".
Andrew Baker, CIO for corporate and investment banking at Barclays Africa, said in a statement:
"We see huge potential for financial institutions in Africa to embrace disruptive technologies like blockchain, and use them to empower individuals and improve the lives of their customers. However, its true value will only be realized if we work together to co-develop and share solutions to common problems."
The consortium has spent the last year both adding new members as well as testing blockchain solutions in trials involving multiple banking participants. R3 announced its own distributed ledger solution, dubbed Corda, in April.
Absa Bank was not immediately available for comment when reached.
Image Credit: Nataly Reinch / Shutterstock.com
More For You
Protocol Research: GoPlus Security

What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Japan’s Higher Rates Puts Bitcoin in the Crosshairs of a Yen Carry Unwind

A stronger yen typically coincides with de-risking across macro portfolios, and that dynamic could tighten liquidity conditions that recently helped bitcoin rebound from November’s lows.
What to know:
- The Bank of Japan is expected to raise interest rates to 0.75% at its December meeting, the highest since 1995, affecting global markets including cryptocurrencies.
- A stronger yen could lead to de-risking in macro portfolios, impacting liquidity conditions that have supported bitcoin's recent recovery.
- Governor Kazuo Ueda indicated a high probability of a rate hike, with officials prepared for further tightening if their economic outlook supports it.










