JPMorgan Chase (JPM), United States banking giant is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency. Dubbed as the “JPM Coin,” it will be the first of its kind in the U.S. banking system.
The move to develop a new asset is touted to increase settlement efficiency, within three of its operations initially. Umar Farooq, the head of JPM’s blockchain focus, spoke to CNBC on the matter and showed buoyancy over blockchain’s perspectives at the bank.
“So anything that currently exists in the world, as that moves onto the blockchain, this would be the payment leg for that transaction. The applications are frankly quite endless; anything where you have a distributed ledger which involves corporations or institutions can use this.”
JPM Coin
Initially focusses on international settlements by major corporations, the JPM Coin will help in speeding up transactions that currently takes a day or longer using the existing SWIFT option.
Farooq added that treasury services and securities transactions would also be benefited and that the cryptocurrency could expand further if it proves successful. At first, the JPM Coin will be involved only a small amount of the total funds involved three areas. He added:
“Even if this was limited to JPM clients at the institutional level, it shouldn’t hold us back.”
In mid- 2017, The banking giant created a controversy in the cryptocurrency ecosystem when the CEO, Jamie Dimon openly called Bitcoin a “fraud.” Though he later refuted the statement.
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