JPMorgan develops its own digital coin to speed up corporate global payments
- The biggest US bank said it has developed a prototype digital coin that it plans to use to speed up payments between corporate customers
JPMorgan Chase is turning to cryptocurrency to modernise one of its most central businesses.
The biggest US bank said it has developed a prototype digital coin that it plans to use to speed up payments between corporate customers, according to a statement released on Thursday. The token, dubbed JPM Coin, is based on blockchain technology, a decentralised public ledger of transactions that offers more speed because it does not rely on a central record keeper.
“Many of our clients move money in different ways and they’re looking for a more real-time way to move value around,” Umar Farooq, head of digital treasury services and blockchain, said in an interview.
JPMorgan moves more than US$5 trillion in wholesale payments each day, so even a nascent experiment from the banking giant is poised to make waves in the cryptocurrency world. While some experts questioned the broader impact of a dollar-pegged coin available only to JPMorgan clients, others said the bank’s involvement lends legitimacy to an area that is been rocked by volatility and scandal.
The bank started developing JPM Coin about a year ago in response to client demand and plans to start testing out possible uses with a small number of its institutional customers in the coming months, Farooq said. He declined to name the interested companies.