Mercator Advisory Group, a Maynard, Mass.-based payments consulting firm, was commissioned to conduct the study, which is expected to be completed by late summer.

"We will have Mercator survey the current blockchain landscape in order to create a strategic decision framework for evaluating blockchain and other technologies," Stan Hollen, President/CEO of CO-OP, which is based in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.  

Both CO-OP and TMG, a Des Moines, Iowa-based payments provider, said they see value in blockchain technology, in addition to the transparency and security it can offer to the credit union industry.

However, the organizations also said in a prepared statement that given the complexity of the systems and environments credit unions operate in, the integration architecture of blockchain may be an obstacle for wide-scale adoption.

"Knowing other industries see value in blockchain, they are likely to forge ahead with developing and implementing systems to support the technology," Shazia Manus, president/CEO of TMG, said. "Those industries that are successful in developing and implementing systems where data integrity and secure exchange of information remain unbroken will most likely pave a path for the financial services sector."

Tim Sloane, Mercator's vice president of payments innovation, wrote in a recent paper that R3 CEV, a 45-bank consortium formed to implement blockchain solutions, has decided that blockchain technology is not capable of addressing the complex use cases associated with regulated entities.

"This revelation should cause others to take a large step back from evaluating technology and instead invest time in determining and understanding the business problem to be solved or perhaps the value chain participants the solution is likely to displace," Sloane wrote.