- The widely known financial services firm JPMorgan Chase has announced that its very own cryptocurrency, JPM Coin, is now in use for cross-border payments.
- Its first client for the new coin is understood to be a technology company.
- JPMorgan Chase has now set up a specific arm of its business, called Onyx, to manage this new exploration into cryptocurrency payments.
Global banking stalwart JPMorgan Chase has announced that a new cryptocurrency designed to assist with cross-border payments is ready for commercial use”
The firm said that it already has a client for the service, an as yet unnamed technology firm working on a large scale.
The crypto coin, which is called JPM Coin, is now in use.
JPMorgan Chase also said that it had made the bold move to create a brand-new arm of its business to manage the new service.
This will, it said, be called Onyx.
It is believed that there are currently over 100 members of staff at Onyx.
In an interview given to a major financial news outlet last week, a senior staff member at the bank described the move as a development from the R&D phase into the market phase.
Takis Georgakopoulos, who serves as the global head of wholesale payments at JPMorgan Chase, said that the move was based on a perception that cryptocurrency was about to experience a period of commercial development more generally.
“We are launching Onyx because we believe we are shifting to a period of commercialization of those technologies, moving from research and development to something that can become a real business,” he said.
He went on to outline the vast efficiency savings that JPMorgan Chase believes it can achieve once the new business and service are up and running.
He specifically floated the idea that in the future, cheques could be processed using a blockchain-powered system that is less complex than the one in place at present.
“Using a version of blockchain with the participants being the main issuers of checks and the main operators of lockboxes, it’s possible we can save 75% of the total cost for the industry today, and make checks available in a matter of minutes as opposed to days,” he said.
The move is, however, something of a change in perception for JPMorgan Chase.
Back in 2017, for example, its chief executive officer Jamie Dimon expressed serious question marks over crypto and its potential.
He was quoted in major press outlets as calling Bitcoin, one of the world’s leading and most famous cryptocurrencies, a “fraud”.
He also predicted that Bitcoin could lead to someone getting “killed”, and claimed that it was “just not a real thing”.
Now, it seems, JPMorgan Chase has seen the potential power of cryptocurrency and intends to use it to further its plans for its international money transfer services.
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