Standard Chartered invests in JPMorgan blockchain platform

Multinational investment bank Standard Chartered  announced a financial commitment to JP Morgan-backed blockchain protocol, Partior. 

With the investment, Partior will gain support from the financial institution to enhance its international outreach. This development will allow Partior to broaden its currency offerings beyond the first slate of eight global currencies – USD, SGD, GBP, EUR, AUD, JPY, CNH, and HKD, by 2023. 

The investment also guarantees Standard Chartered’s role as the first Euro settlement bank for Partior.

Philip Panaino, Global Head of Cash, Transaction Banking at Standard Chartered, shares his viewpoint about the recent investment:

“Our investment in Partior will allow us to deliver the speed, efficiency, and visibility of domestic settlement systems to cross-border transactions, simplifying and improving the experience for our clients.”

Standard Chartered and JP Morgan’s embracement of cryptocurrency 

In May 2019, JP Morgan rolled out the first US bank-backed cryptocurrency, JPM Coin, to transform the payments business. Additionally, as part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Project Guardian, the firm has executed the first live trade on the public blockchain, Polygon.

Around April, Standard Chartered partnered with Sandbox to create a metaverse experience for its customers. As revealed, Standard Chartered intended to bring local sports and art communities into the metaverse. 

Additionally, SC Ventures, a Standard Chartered division specializing in innovations and ventures, announced in July that it would launch a crypto brokerage and exchange platform for institutions in the UK and Europe.

Interestingly, however, JPMorgan Chase President and COO Daniel Pinto and Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters disagreed about the significance of Bitcoin and the wider crypto industry at Hong Kong Fintech Week on Monday. Bitcoin is irrelevant, according to the JP Morgan COO, but the Standard Chartered CEO disagrees, stating that cryptocurrencies have a wide institutional application, primarily in Bitcoin and Ether.