J.P. Morgan has announced a significant enhancement to its blockchain platform, recently rebranded from Onyx to Kinexys. The bank will integrate Kinexys Digital Payments with J.P. Morgan FX Services, enabling on-chain FX settlement. This move positions Kinexys as a key player in the landscape of digital cross-border payments and foreign exchange.
Initially supporting USD and EUR, with plans to expand to other currencies, this integration will allow clients to execute near real-time FX transactions and settlements via the J.P. Morgan global FX platform. This is expected to significantly reduce FX settlement risk and accelerate trade settlements, potentially revolutionizing how businesses manage international payments.
“Together with our clients, we aim to move beyond the limitations of legacy technology and realize the promise of a multichain world,” said Umar Farooq, co-head of J.P. Morgan Payments. “Our goal is to foster a more connected ecosystem to break down disparate systems, enable greater interoperability and reduce the limitations of today’s financial infrastructure.”
This development builds on the existing strengths of Kinexys, which has already processed over $1.5 trillion in transactions since its launch as Onyx in 2020. The platform has facilitated significant growth in payments transactions, with volumes increasing tenfold year-over-year.
The rebranding to Kinexys, announced at the Singapore Fintech Festival, emphasizes the platform’s focus on facilitating the seamless movement of money, assets, and information.
Beyond FX settlement, Kinexys will continue to provide solutions for corporations, financial institutions and FinTechs, streamlining payments, improving asset settlement times and unlocking liquidity.
J.P. Morgan also released a whitepaper detailing a proof-of-concept that explores the use of blockchain technology to enhance privacy, identity and composability within financial ecosystems.
“Regardless of whether assets are tokenized on public or permissioned chains, or whether the immediate focus is operational optimization or distribution expansion, traditional market requirements remain unfulfilled, the whitepaper titled “Project Epic” states. “The lack of mature, on-chain cryptographic privacy solutions, coupled with the absence of consensus on implementing privacy-preserving digital identity, continues to create operational friction in tokenized asset interactions. While these challenges are not entirely gating — as demonstrated by the $2-3B 7 raised through on-chain funds and approximately $200B in stablecoins, protocol treasuries and public chain lending protocols — solving for them could broaden adoption.”