While its CEO, Jamie Dimon, is notorious for his critical comments on bitcoin, investment bank JPMorgan is preparing for a future where blockchain is a key part of financial infrastructure with its own cryptocurrency.
Called JPM Coin, the token has been developed by engineers at the bank, according to a report from CNBC on Thursday, and is moving to real world trials in “a few months”
For the effort, JPM Coin will be used to settle a small portion of its transactions between clients of its wholesale payments business in real time, CNBC says. The bank moves over $6 trillion daily as part of that business, it adds.
Speaking to the news source, Umar Farooq, JPM’s blockchain lead, posited three main use cases for the bank token, including replacing wire transfers for international payments by large corporate clients and cutting settlement times from days to just moments.
It could also be used to provide instant settlement for securities issuances, as well as to replace U.S. dollars at held internatinally by subsidiaries of major corporations using JPM’s treasury services.
“Money sloshes back and forth all over the world in a large enterprise,” Farooq said. “Is there a way to ensure that a subsidiary can represent cash on the balance sheet without having to actually wire it to the unit? That way, they can consolidate their money and probably get better rates for it.”
Eventually, JPM coin could be used for mobile payments he added.
“Pretty much every big corporation is our client, and most of the major banks in the world are, too,” Farooq concluded. So, even just using the token among to JPM clients “shouldn’t hold us back.”
JPMorgan image via Shutterstock
https://www.coindesk.com/jpmorgan-moving-its-in-house-crypto-to-real-world-trials-report
