JPMorgan Chase executives weigh in on stablecoin regulation and crypto competition

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During JP Morgan Chase’s Q4 2020 earnings call, CEO Jamie Dimon and CFO Jennifer Piepszak weighed in on the OCC’s recent approval of banks using stable coins for payments, as well as whether or not the approval will impact the development of JPM Coin.

During the question-and-answer portion of the call, Charles Peabody, an analyst at Portales Partners, sought OCC approval for banks to use public blockchain networks for payments.

“These tips allow a stable offering on a public blockchain. So this has no impact on the JPM coin. The JPM coin, you should be thinking about tokenizing our clients’ deposits, ”replied Jennifer Piepszak, CFO of JPM, according to a transcript of the call.

However, she did not rule out the possibility of a JPM backed stablecoin if customers showed interest.

“So it’s obviously very early. We’ll assess use cases and – and customer demand. But – but it’s still too early to see where this is going for us. “

JPM CEO Jamie Dimon was quick to step in and mentioned that the bank “is already using blockchain to share data with banks and so we’re at the forefront of what’s good.

Launched in October 2020, JPM Coin is widely used on the backend of JPM’s payments systems, helping to settle nearly $ 6 trillion in payments on a daily basis. During the call, Piepszak also described the JPM Coin project as “tokenization deposits to facilitate payments for the customer”.

Ultimately, Dimon seemed to imply that settling crypto payments wouldn’t significantly change how JPM works.

“We’re talking about several banks with digital currencies and stuff like that, right?” Dimon concluded. “[…] So I – I’m expecting things to happen and it might not change our world much ”

However, Dimon may be underestimating the impact of crypto on the payments landscape.

Paypal, one of the fintech giants that Dimon referred to by name as a payments competitor, has confirmed that crypto payments will be available from 2021. The CEO – a prominent former cryptocurrency skeptic – has made it clear that payments would become more and more crowded and fierce area over the next decade:

I expect this to be a very, very tough competition over the next 10 years. I hope to win. So help me God.