R3 founder and CEO David Rutter confirmed Tuesday that the blockchain consortium would be closing on $150 million funding round in early 2017.

In an interview at Techcrunch Disrupt in London, Rutter also said he expected its leading-edge product Corda to be put into use late next year, and for wider adoption in the next three to five years.

R3 has hit some bumps in the road during its fund-raising process. Initially it had hoped to raise $200 million, Reuters reported. Goldman Sachs and Bank Santander dropped out of the consortium of banks. Rutter said that more than 70 banks were still a part of the group and that about 42 were involved in funding and coding. Every week, new members join, he said.

Rutter defended the business model, saying R3 would be laying the plumbing for the next generation of financial institutions. “We want to open it up to the scrutiny of the world.” Chief Technology Officer Richard Gendal Brown “felt strongly that it was an advantage to have more eyeballs on such a crucial piece of technology. We view it as foundational for the next 20 to 30 years.”

Goldman Sachs disagreed with the approach. “They like to see a smaller group.” Rutter said. “I‘ve been in consortiums before. In some ways it’s better to have a larger group; you have a governance structure like what you would see in a public company. You have so many shareholders.”

Why resort to blockchain technology? “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reconsider how financial transactions are made and confirmed and how transactions are paid across the globe,” Rutter said. At the moment, the solutions are as much as 40 years old  — “it’s a spaghetti string.”

That spaghetti string approach is costly. Rutter noted that McKinsey & Co. estimates banks spend $3.6 trillion on settlements and payments issues. In addition saving costs, “the distributed ledger is an opportunity to create secure financial infrastructure in the cloud,” Rutter said.

Rutter said blockchain could put an end to hidden trade tickets on Wall Street and end market manipulation, which have plagued major market sectors like the London Interbank lending market. It could also move money more efficiently for small business people around the world who may wait for days to receive payment for shipped goods.

In a highly regulated industry, Rutter called blockchain a “panacea” enabling the overseers of our system to keep better tabs on the flow of money and transfer of assets. “I met over 100 regulators in the last year.”

The worse part of his job: Raising money. “I‘d like to meet an entrepreneur who enjoyed his funding round,” Rutter said.