The initiative - dubbed Red Lyra - has garnered the support of Sabadell, Santander, Bankia, BBVA, BME and Caja Rural as well as leading notaries, law firms and academic institutions.

The goal is for any company to use the network to validate the identities of counterparties and individuals, for example for fast customer onboarding, as well as to operate and apply digital signatures legally. It will also act as a collaborative code-sharing database to foster innovation efforts among its community of members.

"Red Lyra is a great example of the advances in the use of blockchain in corporate environments," says Julio Faura, head of blockchain R&D at Santander. "This project is a pioneer internationally, not only because it is a collaborative work among companies from different sectors, but also for the participation of public entities, public notaries and lawyers, who have pushed from the beginning for this platform to have the capacity to execute legally binding transactions, something unique in the world.”

The first services developed by the network are expected to be operational in the "next few months" says Red Lyra director Alex Puig, a well-known face in the Spanish fintech and virtual currency sector.

He says Red Lyra will act as a not-for-profit association funded by its members with the aim of building a semi-public and authorised network for developing new digital services using distributed ledger technology and smart contracts.

“The Lyra Network will help bolster the development and adoption of new distributed ledger technologies in Spain," says BBVA CTO of new digital business Carlos Kuchkovsky. "Also, the neutral open-code philosophy under which the network has been conceived warrants its integration and compatibility with other international initiatives.".