Yahoo News JPMorgan’s ‘JPM Coin’ Is Live, Execs Say
Investment banking giant JPMorgan is about to see the first commercial transactions with its own cryptocurrency, JPM Coin.
According to a report from CNBC Tuesday, Takis Georgakopoulos, JPMorgan global head of wholesale payments, said a major tech firm will use the token to make global payments starting this week.
As the bank sees blockchain technology becoming commercially viable, it has also created a business unit with around 100 employees, Onyx to house related projects, Georgakopoulos told CNBC.
“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,” the executive said in the report.
Christine Moy, blockchain lead at JPM, confirmed the reporting on Twitter:
JPMorgan is focusing on the wholesale payments business, where removing inefficiencies can save the banking industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year, Georgakopoulos added.
First revealed in February 2019, JPM started trials of JPM Coin last summer.
The token was designed to speed transactions, such as payments between firms or bond transactions.
It was built on Quorum, a private version of Ethereum developed by the bank but acquired by development firm ConsenSys this August.
CNBC also reported JPM’s blockchain-based Interbank Information Network is rebranding as Liink and will soon launch as a way to validate payments before they are sent.
Umar Farooq, the CEO of Onyx, said the bank is also eyeing using blockchain to send digital versions of paper checks and save banks 75% of the costs currently needed to send and process these payments.
Also read: ConsenSys Acquires JPMorgan’s Quorum Blockchain
