Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, along with the CFO Jennifer Piepszak weighed in on the OCC’s recent approval of banks using stablecoins for payments during its Q4 2020 earnings call, as well as whether or not the approval will have any impact on the development of JPM Coin.
It has been reported that during the question-and-answer portion of the call, Portales Partners analyst Charles Peabody asked about the approval from the OCC for banks to use public blockchain networks for payments.
According to a transcript of the call, Piepszak responded:
“That guidance enables an offering of stable going on a public blockchain. So that doesn’t impact JPM coin. JPM coin, you should think about as the tokenization of our customer deposits.”
However, she did not rule out the possibility of a JPM-backed stablecoin if customers showed interest.
She added:
“So, it’s obviously very early. We will assess use cases and — and customers demand. But — but it’s still too early to see where this goes for us.”
The report said that Dimon was also quick to jump in and mention that the bank is “using blockchain for sharing data with banks already and so we are at the forefront of that which is good.”
Jamie Dimon sees a competitive payments landscape on the horizon, but for some reason doesn't think cryptocurrencies will play a part… https://t.co/G5TRDf8eWo — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) January 16, 2021
JPM Coin is largely used on the backend of JPM’s payments systems by helping to settle nearly $6 trillion in payments on a daily basis. On the call, Piepszak also described the JPM Coin project as “tokenizing deposits to make payments easier for the client.” Dimon seemed to imply to crypto payments settlement won’t greatly change how JPM operates.
Dimon said:
“There is this talk about several banks having digital currencies and stuff like that, right? […] So I — I do expect that stuff is coming and it may not change our world that much”
Likewise, Dimon may be underestimating the impact crypto will have on the payments landscape. Paypal, one of the Fintech giants that Dimon mentioned by name as a payments competitor, confirmed that crypto payments will be available starting in 2021.
He concluded:
“I expect it to be very, very tough competition in the next 10 years. I expect to win. So help me God.”
Source: Cointelegraph