JPMorgan announced last week that it has set up a dedicated digital currency unit and that its own digital currency, issued on the same Quorum Blockchain as Qoin, is now being used commercially by a large tech company for the first time.
Global investment bank and financial services company JPMorgan Chase has set up a business division dedicated to blockchain technology and digital currency. The new unit called Onyx has more than 100 staff, CNBC reported on Tuesday.
“We are launching Onyx because we believe we are shifting to a period of commercialisation of those technologies, moving from research and development to something that can become a real business,” Takis Georgakopoulos, JPMorgan’s Global Head of Wholesale Payments said.
Georgakopoulos explained that JPMorgan’s own digital currency, the JPM Coin, is being used commercially for the first time this week by a large, unnamed technology client to send payments around the world. He added that other clients are being on-boarded and the JPM Coin will be issued on Quorum Blockchain and subsequently extended to other platforms.
Georgakopoulos further detailed that the bank is focused on improving wholesale payments, specifically in areas where a better solution could save the industry hundreds of millions of dollars. CNBC noted that as one of the largest players in this industry, JPMorgan moves more than $6 trillion a day across more than 100 countries. JPMorgan’s comments followed an announcement by Paypal that the company will support digital currencies, and that users could soon buy, hold and sell digital currency directly from their accounts.