Welcome to the first episode of our new News Flash series, where we share the latest developments in the blockchain space, straight off the press. In today’s episode we have Ryan Rugg, Global Head of Insurance at R3 and a regular speaker at Insureblocks.

R3, which featured in one of our previous episodes (R3 – The blockchain banking consortium) started in 2015 as a consortium of financial institutions that joined forces to test blockchain solutions. Three years later, their hard work has culminated in an exciting new project and we are proud to announce the release of Corda Enterprise to the insurance industry.

Corda Enterprise is R3’s commercial offering that brings greater enterprise capabilities to the Corda platform. It builds upon Corda’s functionality, enhancing availability, security and performance.

 

Corda

Corda, the blockchain created by R3, is the only blockchain that has been designed and built specifically for business. Corda’s focus on privacy, security and scalability distinguish it from other blockchains. Unlike Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric, where all the information is shared between every node on the network, Corda shares information on a bilateral and multilateral level only with parties that need to see it.

This choice has certainly paid off as there are currently over 200 financial institutions, regulators, insurers, trade associations, professional services firms and ISVs that are working on Corda. Many of these have featured on Insureblocks, such as B3i, which replaced the IBM Hyperledger Fabric with Corda, Insurwave and RiskBlock.

Corda also appeals to industries beyond insurance. Fusion LenderComm, a syndicated lending platform and GuildOne’s Royalty Ledger, a blockchain solution for the oil and gas sector, both utilise Corda.

This wide participation across industries is the reason Corda is an open source project. R3 wanted Corda to be a decentralised and open environment where every company can work with others or create and share their own innovative solutions. Continuing in this spirit, Corda and Corda Enterprise are fully interoperable. Anyone can remain on Corda without procuring the Enterprise licence. Anyone can upgrade to Corda Enterprise and still work with applications on the Corda blockchain.

 

Why Corda Enterprise?

The whole idea of Corda is to enable businesses to transact directly and privately, reducing transaction costs and streamlining operations. However, many large users faced technical, regulatory and compliance issues that prevented them from using blockchain internally at scale. After listening to Corda members’ requests, R3 is launching Corda Enterprise and has implemented additional functionalities so that every business can benefit.

These extra features enhance security and make Corda Enterprise easier to scale:

• Blockchain Application Firewall – enables Corda Enterprise to be deployed inside corporate data centres while retaining the ability to securely communicate with other nodes on the network. This is a unique feature that is not present in any other blockchain
• 24/7 support
• Predictable release schedules
• Governance, performance and availability monitoring
• Enhanced security
• Disaster recovery
• Support for Oracle and SQL databases
• Corda network

The Corda Network

People often talk about ledger interoperability but forget about interoperability within ledgers themselves. Within differently designed networks, such as Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric, users cannot seamlessly operate from one application to another, leading to trapped assets in different channels.

In reality businesses want to operate with more than one application at a time. With Corda Network, members have a unique ID. This means they have a single identity on the platform and can seamlessly operate within all applications, whether on Corda Enterprise or Corda open source.

 

Starting out: Corda or Corda Enterprise?

Choosing between Corda and Corda Enterprise wholly depends on business needs. Corda is free and well-suited to many businesses. It contains numerous templates and clear documentation to accelerate members’ learning and help them make the most out of Corda.

If a company wants to use Corda on a larger scale and requires the advanced functionalities of Corda Enterprise, they can easily migrate. As the platforms are interoperable, members of Corda Enterprise can always work with members of Corda, and vice versa.

 

 

What’s next for Corda?

In addition to Corda Enterprise, R3 is launching two new features to help members make the most of the Corda environment.

1. Corda Marketplace

As Corda has increased in popularity and applications are developing in insurance and beyond, R3 is looking to migrate them to a Corda marketplace. Essentially, this will be a Corda app store where users can easily try applications Corda partners have built. Members will be able to easily find and use tested apps or showcase their own applications. To promote this vision and help members display their applications,  R3 is holding CordaCon. It is coming to London on September 12th – 13th.

Anyone interested in Corda and blockchain should register to attend. CordaCon covers areas including insurance, financial services, energy and asset management.

*Update: Corda has now launched the Corda Marketplace at CordaCon. For more information go to: https://marketplace.r3.com/dashboard 

2. Corda Insure

Corda Insure will launch between mid-August and September and is part of a series of global trials run by R3 to ensure members are fully prepared for using Corda. It is a learning tool aimed at insurers on a global scale.

The first week focuses on education. It includes 25 to 30 modules, to be deployed at scale at participating organisations, covering topics such as oracles and reaching consensus. Members have access to an optional test to ensure their knowledge is up-to-date.

The second and third weeks focus on the business side. Tech teams are trained on how to use the Corda platform and can receive a Corda certificate. During the third week, members participate in a learning exercise on an Industry Loss Warranty. Participants are assigned different roles (insurer, reinsurer, broker and trustee) and go through the process of deploying a live node and reaching consensus.

Corda Insured has been inspired from Corda KYC, a global project in which 33 banks participated on a KYC project on the Corda platform. Corda Insure is the ideal tool for any Corda organisation that wants to ensure they are both educating and upscaling their workforce.

 

Your Turn!

 Between Corda Enterprise, Corda Marketplace and Corda Insure, R3 have developed a great strategy to solidify and expand Corda’s popularity.

We hope you enjoyed our first News Flash episode. If you liked this episode please do review it on iTunes. Your comments and suggestions are always appreciated so please don’t hesitate to add a comment below.

If your organisation has any news you’d like to share regarding blockchain, feel free to get in touch with us and we’ll help you spread the word. If you’d like to ask Ryan a question, you can add a comment below and we’ll get her over to our site to answer your questions.