JPMorgan is creating an innovation center in Greece to explore blockchain usage
Investment banking giant JPMorgan has announced a new Payments Innovation Lab to explore the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) or blockchain in its business. The laboratory, located in Athens, will be the main part of the investment bank’s venture into digital assets.
The lab will be staffed by a team of 50 people familiar with the fields of cryptography, artificial intelligence (AI) and DLT, according to the disclosure. The Payments Innovation Lab will cater to the needs of Onyx, a pioneering effort by the bank to provide next-generation payment rails for digital assets.
“We want to stay at the cutting edge of payments innovation, and our new location in Athens will be a central nerve center for our cutting-edge payments innovation efforts,” noted Takis Georgakopoulos, global head of JP Morgan Payments.
Currently, the bank is in active discussions with local agents to secure a prime location for its expansion into Greece. Already, JPMorgan has confirmed it is looking for a head of the new division, while applications for other roles have been opened with a preference for local talent.
“Our investment in a new office and local, highly skilled talent is a testament to JP Morgan’s long commitment to Greece,” said Stelios Papadopoulos, a senior country officer at the bank.
The new outfit is not the first time JPMorgan has done business in Greece, as the investment bank had opened offices in Athens and Piraeus as far back as 1968. The bank has provided financial services to some of the biggest firms in the country, and pundits. sees the establishment of a DLT laboratory in Greece as a move that will only strengthen ties between both parties.
JPMorgan and digital assets
JPMorgan is no stranger to digital assets, but like other Wall Street firms, it showed some skepticism about the new asset class. However, the bank has held firm in recent years, and made significant progress in the ecosystem.
“Over time, we believe that tokenization of shares in US Treasuries or MMFs, for example, means that these could all potentially be used as collateral in DeFi pools,” said Tyrone Lobban, head of Onyx and digital assets at the bank. “The overall goal is to bring these trillions of dollars of assets into DeFi so that we can use these new mechanisms for trading, lending [and] lending, but with the extent of institutional assets.”
Despite the bank’s ambitious goals, it maintains that ecosystem-wide consumer protection should be prioritized to prevent incidents that could threaten the ecosystem’s survival.
See: BSV Global Blockchain Convention panel, The Future of Financial Services on Blockchain: More Efficiency & Inclusion
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