J.P. Morgan to tokenise euro deposits, sees NFT as opportunity
J.P. Morgan. which has enabled tokenised U.S. dollar deposits with JPM Coin, now appears poised to allow blockchain-based Euro deposits as well.
Europe has clearer regulation for euro deposit tokenisation
According to Basek Toprak, head of Coin Systems at Onyx by JP Morgan, the company plans to tokenise euro deposits very soon.
Speaking at the Crypto Assets Conference in Germany, she said programmability is crucial in order to be able to replace existing payment processes with more efficient mechanisms, media reports said.
Toprak explained that in shipping, for example, payments to port operators could be triggered at precisely the right time using programmable money. This is advantageous since early or late charges are usually associated with increased costs for shipping companies.
Katharina Gehra, CEO of crypto asset management and analytics house Immutable Insight commented that it will be interesting to see how the tokenisation of classic financial instruments goes on. She agreed that the development is definitely positive because regulation in Europe has created greater clarity for institutional investors in recent months.
The fact that banks like J.P. Morgan and BNP Paribas, or asset managers like Union Investment, are dealing with blockchain solutions, was seen by the participants of the Crypto Assets Conference as a positive signal because the established financial institutions have the resources to drive broader crypto adoption decisively.
Toprak said a way toward public blockchain payments is constantly developing and that J.P. Morgan focuses on JPM Coin, enabling payments via a shared ledger within the bank.
“The future is universal ledgers,” she said. “We are slowly getting there. Web3, a public blockchain, these will be possible over time. (We’re) Taking small but important steps.”
NFT as opportunity
On another related topic, J.P. Morgan also said it sees a payment opportunity for NFTs.
Brody Mulderig, who covers Fintech at J.P. Morgan, commented that technology today is not friendly enough for NFT mass adoption.
He explained that if users are not already involved in crypto, the easy part is transferring money onto a crypto exchange. “But then users have to transfer that to a self-custodial wallet, buy hardware to ensure it’s secure, and then buy the NFT. They also must be wary of phishing scams and the risk of losing the seed phrase to their wallet,” he said.
Reports also say J.P. Morgan is allegedly in talks with some music NFT platforms about enabling fiat payments. It’s also looking at the potential of web3 more broadly, which it considers to include all applications that aren’t directly related to finance.
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