Breaking: JPMorgan's digital currency, JPM Coin, is ready for commercial use

JPMorgan Chase announced that its digital currency, JPM Coin, had been used for commercial purposes this week. A large technology client of the bank used it to send cross-border payments.

This development was one of the factors behind the bank's decision to create a new business to deal with blockchain and digital assets. 

According to the bank's Global Head of Wholesale Payments, Takis Georgakopoulos, the new department called Onyx, has over 100 dedicated employees.

We are launching Onyx because we believe we are shifting to a period of commercialization of those technologies, moving from research and development to something that can become a real business, he said in the interview with CNBC.

Georgakopoulos remarks that JPMorgan is trying to improve the wholesale payments, seeking better solutions to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the industry.

Experts believe that JPMorgan's last move and the recent PayPal announcement will help integrate the cryptocurrency into the existing financial system and speed up its adoption. 

Blockchain technology will allow to save on remediating mistakes and moving from checks to digital payments.

We're talking about hundreds of millions of checks being sent. Using a version of the blockchain with the participants being the main issuers of checks and the main operators of lockboxes, it's possible we can save 75% of the total cost for the industry today, and make checks available in a matter of minutes as opposed to days.

Georgakopoulos confirmed that one client has already been using JPM Coin for cross-border payments while other clients are being on-boarded.