The largest bank in Germany Deutsche bank, has joined JPMorgan’s Blockchain-based network; the interbank information Network (INN)
The JPMorgan Blockchain initiative was launched bank in 2017 as a pilot, and has since attracted 320 banks which have all signed up to the initiative. According to the financial times, all these banks have entered the platform in order to swap payments data using the Ethereum network.
The head of payments at JPMorgan, Takis Georgakopolous expressed hope that other large banks will follow Deutsche’s lead being the largest clearer of euro-denominated payments. An endorsement by the Deutsche bank is a great thing according to Takis and may well encourage other banks of similar size to sign up as well.
The Ethereum based IIN, will help the Deutsche bank offer better services to clients according to Ole Matthiessen. Matthiessen, who occupied the position in March 2019, explained that the bank expects the network to slash the cost of processing difficult payments.
The IIN network has been designed to help make difficult transactions easy and is based on JPMorgan’s Quorum platform which has been built to make inter-bank information sharing difficulties, a thing of the past. The quorum platform which is also based on the Ethereum network not only helps with the information sharing problem, but also helps speed up transactions. The Quorum platform was recently reported by popular Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, as being almost full since it is the most popular public Blockchain network for decentralized apps.
According to Georgakopolous –JPMorgan’s head of payments- the bank aims to raise the number of banks that have joined the IIN network from 320 to 400 by the end of this year. According to him, the 80 bank gain is not their only target; they also plan to woo banks just as big as the Deutsche bank. It’s been public knowledge since February this year that JPMorgan is planning to pilot its own cryptocurrency by the end of this year, which makes it a very big year for the bank. The bank’s CEO Jamie Dixon has been very vocal on matters cryptocurrency, and threw his weight behind the much talked about proposed Libra project. While many have had concerns about this Facebook project, the JPMorgan’s CEO has said that the project poses no real threat to banks in the short term which is contrary to what some commentators have said.
Image Courtesy of thestreet.com
