A group of financial firms led by UBS plans to start using a bitcoin-like token to settle cross-border trades, one of the biggest developments yet in the effort to make use of nascent blockchain technology.

The 14 firms — a group that includes big banks in the US, Europe and Japan — have created a new company to control the development of the token, called the utility settlement coin, or USC. They have collectively invested £50m ($63.2 m) in the company, Fnality International.