First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) has recently concluded a blockchain-based cross-border payments pilot project in partnership with JPMorgan’s Onyx Coin Systems, marking another milestone in the Middle East for the JPMorgan initiative. This pilot phase proceeded flawlessly, boasting impressive response times, according to an official statement.
Notably, the FAB pilot followed a similar trial in Bahrain, where Bank ABC had been actively testing the Onyx system before venturing into a limited launch of services. FAB is actively exploring the manifold opportunities presented by this innovative system.
JPMorgan’s permissioned distributed ledger, which took off in 2020, has been gaining momentum in recent months. Tyrone Lobban, the head of JPMorgan Onyx digital assets and blockchain, stated earlier this month that the platform currently processes a daily volume ranging from $1 billion to $2 billion.
Beyond its expansion in the Middle East, Onyx has been facilitating euro-denominated payments in Europe since June. During that same month, it introduced interbank United States dollar settlements in India through collaboration with a consortium of six prominent banks.
On October 11, a significant milestone was achieved as the first public trade was successfully settled on JPMorgan’s innovative Tokenization Collateral Network, which operates seamlessly on the Onyx blockchain. This groundbreaking development involved the tokenization of money market fund shares, which were securely deposited at Barclays Bank, serving as collateral for a derivatives exchange between JPMorgan and BlackRock.
In parallel, Mastercard announced its testing phase for the Multi Token Network in June, while Citigroup introduced its Citi Token Services in September.
JPMorgan was a notable participant in Project Guardian, joining forces with DBS Bank and Marketnode. This initiative, concluded in June, was a collaborative effort between the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank for International Settlements. It revolved around the establishment of a liquidity pool comprised of tokenized bonds and deposits, designed for lending and borrowing purposes.
Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that JPMorgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, has publicly expressed his strong belief in artificial intelligence, while also voicing his skepticism towards cryptocurrencies, which he has referred to as “decentralized Ponzi schemes.”
