The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that a blockchain platform developed by a group that includes more than 70 of the world's biggest financial institutions is making its code publicly available, in what could become the industry standard for the nascent technology. The Globe's David Berman writes that the Corda platform has been developed by a consortium brought together by New York financial technology company R3. It represents the biggest shared effort among banks, insurers, fund managers and other players to work on using blockchain technology in the financial markets. Canadian banks were among the first financial institutions to join the R3 consortium, which now includes all of the biggest names. Royal Bank of Canada and TD Bank joined R3 about a year ago, followed by CIBC, Bank of Montreal and Bank of Nova Scotia. Since then, bank executives have been keen to talk about the benefits of blockchain technology as a way to improve the efficiency of transactions. In an interview last year, R3's chief executive officer David Rutter said that the impact of blockchain on financial services could be as big as the impact the Internet had on media and entertainment.