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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 new business unit with around 100 employees called 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.
- 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 of 2019, JPM started trials of JPM Coin last summer.
- The token was designed to speed up 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 that 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
