JPMorgan Chase Admits Cryptocurrency could be a 'Risk' to its Business for the primary Time

In JPMorgan Chase’s annual report, free Tuesday afternoon, the bank counted cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum as “risk factors” to its business for the primary time, recognizing the digital currencies as new kinds of competition that might, quite virtually, provide the bank a run its cash.

“Both monetary establishments and their non-banking competitors face the danger that payment process and different services can be noncontinuous by technologies, like cryptocurrencies, that need no intervention,” the bank (JPM, -1.18%) wrote within the report.

Already, the bank value-added, new technologies have needed the corporate to speculate in adapting or modifying its merchandise to draw and retain customers, and to vie with new offerings from technical school upstarts, a trend it expects to continue. “Ongoing or enhanced competition could place downward pressure on costs and charges for JPMorgan Chase’s merchandise and services or could cause JPMorgan Chase to lose market share,” consistent with the report.

The bank’s revelation follows an identical admission by rival Bank of America (BAC, -0.28%) in its own annual report last week. in this filing, Bank of America noted the potential risk of consumers deed for competitors providing merchandise and services “in areas we have a tendency to view speculative or risky, like cryptocurrencies.”

A advocate for JPMorgan Chase declined to discuss why the corporate selected to feature cryptocurrency to its risk factors currently. however the bank has shown AN increasing appreciation for the transformative potential of each blockchain technology—becoming one in all the primary to spearhead the event of its own Ethereum-based blockchain—and the cryptocurrencies supported it. Earlier this month, as an example, Umar Farooq, JPMorgan Chase’s head of blockchain initiatives, offered a peek into the speedy and spirited uptake of the technology within the bank.

“It’s over thriving. folks are shocked however quickly it essentially unfold as the simplest way to deal with and accept customers otherwise,” Farooq aforesaid at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit in big apple on Feb. 7. “It’s quite insane.”

The following week, JPMorgan Chase free a 71-page analysis report that became referred to as the “Bitcoin bible” thanks to its thorough analysis and exploration of a broad spectrum of problems encompassing the dominant cryptocurrency, also as others like Ripple. Assessing banks’ current blockchain and cryptocurrency ventures, the bank’s analysts finished, “Opportunities for banks to utilize blockchain technologies for conducting business may have comprehensive implications for the world in our read.”