JPMorgan Chase to launch instant FX settlement, powered by Kinexys blockchain platform, supporting USD, EUR, and GBP

JPMorgan Chase to launch instant FX settlement, powered by Kinexys blockchain platform, supporting USD, EUR, and GBPJPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, has announced that its Kinexys blockchain platform will soon offer instant foreign exchange settlement between the US dollar and euro, with plans to add the British pound to the service over time. The system will leverage Kinexys' native JPMCoin tokenized deposits, enabling the processing of over $2 billion in transactions daily, according to interviews with JPMorgan executives and a statement released Wednesday

JPMorgan Chase to launch instant FX settlement, powered by Kinexys blockchain platform, supporting USD, EUR, and GBP

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, has announced that its Kinexys blockchain platform will soon offer instant foreign exchange settlement between the US dollar and euro, with plans to add the British pound to the service over time. The system will leverage Kinexys' native JPMCoin tokenized deposits, enabling the processing of over $2 billion in transactions daily, according to interviews with JPMorgan executives and a statement released Wednesday.

If you look at JPMCoin, we're making revenue through fees but also through liquidity by holding these balances. We're finding a third revenue stream through the FX spread, said Naveen Mallela, global co-head of JPMorgan's digital ledger Kinexys, formerly known as Onyx. JPMCoin currently powers USD and EUR-denominated payments for participating institutions via the private blockchain Kinexys.

The move is one of the few examples of a major bank deploying a digital ledger at scale, though it still remains small compared to the $10 trillion in transactions JPMorgan handles daily. The upcoming feature will enable instant settlement between the US dollar and euro, with the pound to be added once approved, according to JPMorgan. Traditional FX settlement times range from same day to up to two days, depending on the currency pair.

The instant settlement service will help JPMorgan attract more clients, including fintech companies, and bring the blockchain project closer to profitability, Mallela said in an interview. Umar Farooq, global co-head of JPMorgan's payments business, said in an interview that it could take another three to five years to balance costs and revenue. He said Onyx was renamed to Kinexys in part to become less mysterious.

Farooq said that the number of transactions on Kinexys has increased tenfold year-over-year. We can scale by another tenfold and it will be fine, he said. We just want to make sure the platform shows it can now operate at scale.