Ten European Financial Institutions Join Forces to Establish RL1, Providing Infrastructure for Tokenized Assets

July 29th. Ten European financial institutions have jointly established the Regulated Layer One (RL1) Blockchain Cooperative to provide infrastructure for regulated financial markets and tokenized assets. The founding members include ING Group from the Netherlands, Cecabank from Spain, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale from France, DekaBank and DZ BANK from Germany, LBBW, Natixis CIB from France, SC Ventures under Standard Chartered Bank, and Seturion.

RL1 is a Luxembourg-based European cooperative, where each member has equal governance rights. The private permissioned blockchain is built on the infrastructure developed by the German fintech SWIAT, which has transferred ownership of the network to the cooperative. RL1 aims to support institutional use cases such as digital currencies, tokenized bonds, collateral, and blockchain settlement, reducing the fragmentation caused by financial institutions operating separate distributed ledger systems.