Major financial institutions have been slow to adopt cryptocurrency but they are gradually opening up to it. According to a new report, JPMorgan Chase will be launching its own cryptocurrency. The financial giant is looking to launch a digital coin which will be used to settle transactions between clients of its wholesale payments business instantly.
JPMorgan Chase moves over $6 trillion across the globe every single day for corporations that are clients of its wholesale payments business. It will now shift a tiny fraction of those transactions over to the “JPM Coin” in the next few months as part of a trial. This digital token has been created by the engineers at the back to instantly settle payments between clients.
The bank is looking at cryptocurrency to move money around almost instantly instead of relying on conventional methods such as wire transfers which are slower. Umar Farooq, head of J.P. Morgan’s blockchain projects, told CNBC that “So anything that currently exists in the world, as that moves onto the blockchain, this would be the payment leg for that transaction.”
The bank’s coin won’t be something like bitcoin, for example. Retail investors will probably never get to own it. JPMorgan may keep it limited to only its significant institutional clients who have gone through stringent regulatory checks.
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