The Lujiazui Blockchain Finance Development Alliance was inaugurated at a blockchain finance forum held in Lujiazui, Shanghai’s financial hub, on Oct 9.

The alliance, sponsored by 13 institutions including the Association of Shanghai Internet Finance Industry, Shanghai Financial Association, and China Financial Information Center, focuses on the application of blockchain technology in banking, securities, insurance, Internet finance and other financial sectors.

It will use Lujiazui’s significant role in financial industry to better promote the development of blockchain finance.

Blockchain is considered as a significant financial technology. It is a distributed database that maintains a continuously-growing list of records. It underlies bitcoin, a digital asset and a payment system introduced in 2008, where it serves as the public ledger for all transactions.

With years of development, its importance to finance has been recognized by more and more financial institutions.

The establishment of the alliance will help unite Shanghai’s or even the country’s blochchain finance sectors to further explore and better develop the field, said Wang Hua, director of Lujiazui Financial City Development Bureau, at the forum.

Wang also mentioned that Lujiazui, now home to hundreds of financial technology companies, will fully develop the financial technology sector and give it stronger support in industrial research, capital, incentives, and preferential policies.