J.P. Morgan Handles $1B in Daily JPM Coin Transactions

Banking giant J.P. Morgan (JPM) revealed that it was now handling around $1 billion in daily transactions through its blockchain-based wholesale payments system, Bloomberg reported on 26 October.

The comment was made during a Bloomberg TV interview by JPM’s global head of payments, Takis Georgakopoulos, who said that the bank moves around $1 billion every day through its JPM Coin payment system, and that it had plans to widen the usage of the token, noting that “the next step in the journey is to think about how you can create a more retail version of that”.

During the interview, Georgakopoulos said there are currently three major issues with the current payment systems that the bank is trying to solve using its digital asset. First is the speed at which payments are made — especially cross-border transactions — next is the separate movement of money and information that makes it hard to track and reconcile transactions, and last is the fungibility of money.

Launched in 2020, JPM Coin is a stablecoin that originally supported only the U.S. dollar, but in June 2023 expanded that support to include euros. The blockchain-based payment system’s original aim was to only serve as a temporary vehicle for real-time gross settlements between JPM’s institutional clients. The system not only operates 24/7, but also provides clients with faster transactions, allow them to initiate payments right before their deadline, and improve the overall liquidity management.

While a $1 billion in daily transactions is a small fraction of the $10 trillion in payments that JPM handles daily through its traditional system, JPM Coin has demonstrated that it is noteworthy by gaining a significant traction in just a few months. Back in June JPM reported that it had processed over $300 billion since the blockchain-based system was launched in 2020, and the data from today shows a massive surge in usage over the past four months.