JPMorgan’s Native Cryptocurrency JPM Coin is Ready For Commercial Use, Execs Say

The long-awaited launch of investment giant, JPMorgan’s ‘JPM Coin’ is reportedly being used for the first time this week by a “large technology client” to execute payments commercially that is using it for round-the-clock cross-border payments. The company has, however, not yet disclosed the name of the major tech firm which will be leveraging the crypto. This was first reported by CNBC and then Christine Moy, the blockchain lead at JPM, confirmed the news via Twitter.

JPMorgan creates new division Onyx focused on #blockchain, JPM Coin is LIVE, the 400 bank network Liink has a new LIVE app to Confirm account info before payments to prevent fraud https://t.co/nVWlGvURNh

— Christine Moy $JPMLIINK (@cmoyall) October 27, 2020

Focus Point

Takis Georgakopoulos, the bank’s Global Head of wholesale payments mentioned that JPMorgan intends to focus on addressing the pain points and other inefficiciencies plaguing the wholesale payments sector, especially in areas where the industry could a lot of funds with a better solution. On a similar note, the exec spoke about the complicacies of processing paper checks which can be radically simplified using a blockchain. His words were,

“We’re talking about hundreds of millions of checks being sent. 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.”

A Little History

It was in back in February 2019, when JP Morgan Chase launched its own cryptocurrency. With this development, it went on to become the first major US bank to create a cryptocurrency. JPMorgan had earlier create a new business to house its blockchain and digital currency efforts dubbed ‘Onyx’. Umar Farooq, who was previously the Head of JPMorgan’s blockchain projects, was named as the CEO of Onyx.

Talking about the platform, Georgakopoulos, further asserted,

“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.”

Reports of Delay

Switzerland-headquartered Financial Stability Board [FSB] recently published its G20 recommendations on global stablecoins [GSC] wherein it suggested new standards for global regulations be set by mid-2022. The paper also mentioned that these regulations could also apply to wholesale stablecoins. Due to the hostile regulatory climate, this posed a threat to the wholesale global stablecoin and hence reports of JPMorgan to potentially delay the launch emerged.