OCBC Joins JP Morgan’s Blockchain Consortium
Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) has joined JP Morgan’s Interbank Information Network (IIN) as the first Singaporean bank in the consortium. Business Times reported that OCBC joins a long list of 112 APAC banks that have joined this network, September 20, 2019.
Singapore in on JPM Blockchain Service
Close to 343 global banks have already jointed JP Morgan’s consortium, making it one of the largest blockchain based networks for commercial banking.
IIN was launched in 2017 as a means of reducing the friction in remitting money globally. It runs off JP Morgan’s permissioned blockchain, Quorum, which is essentially a private fork of the Ethereum blockchain.
The network aims to create meaningful value for its users by utilizing the potential of revolutionary technology such as a blockchain.
Cross border payments have been one of the top use cases for distributed ledgers, and their utility in this realm continues to grow on a daily basis.
Blockchain Contenders
By creating a network connected to the largest banks across the world, JP Morgan is developing a radically efficient network to bring a new paradigm of commercial bank remittances.
Quorum uses JPM Coin as its base currency, settling all transactions in the digitized dollar. This isn’t a cryptocurrency per se, as it is simply a digital coin that represents one USD.
After JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon touted Bitcoin as a fraudulent network, his company has since dove headfirst into cryptocurrency and blockchain.
Most banking companies believe the true value of Bitcoin is derived from the trustless and transparent nature of blockchains, so naturally, they think they can make a better version of it by building their own products on top of a blockchain.
While this can create a lot of new synergies for the banking industry, none of these coins can offer the same value proposition of Bitcoin as it is impossible for them to be permissionless and censorship-resistant.
JP Morgan may surge to the top of the blockchain banking game, but it is a surety that they won’t be able to impact the public in the way Bitcoin has.
