The formation by big banks of industry groups to develop commercial uses of blockchain technology is a laudable blossoming of collaboration between otherwise-sworn rivals – but that has not stopped one consortium poaching the head of another.

R3, a New York blockchain consortium backed by 42 banks, has recruited Brian McNulty, the chairman of the Post Trade Distributed Ledger group, a consortium formed in late 2015 in London to explore how blockchain can change the way securities are traded, cleared, settled and reported.