Blockchain adoption in large-scale finance ‘accelerates very rapidly’ — Franklin Templeton exec

Major financial firms such as JPMorgan and Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) have stepped up their blockchain-related activities towards 2024, accelerating the adoption of distributed ledger technology (DLT) within traditional finance.

On November 3, JPMorgan executed the first decentralized finance (DeFi) transaction on a public blockchain. The company launched programmable payments for its institutional blockchain platform, JPM Coin, on November 10. JPMorgan and Apollo executives also announced plans for a tokenized enterprise mainnet on November 28.

In addition to JPMorgan, HSBC is also making moves. On November 1, HSBC and financial services provider Ant Group tested tokenized deposits in a sandbox set up by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Meanwhile, HSBC partnered with Ripple-owned technology company Metaco on November 8 to hold tokenized securities on a new custody platform.

The interest from major financial companies shows that the potential of DLT is slowly overtaking previous skepticism surrounding it. “Technology adoption is actually accelerating very quickly,” said Sandy Kaul, an executive at asset manager Franklin Templeton, quoted in the Bloomberg report. Kaul also said that a path to re-engineering global financial markets could be seen for the first time.

Franklin Templeton is one of several asset managers applying for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. On September 12, the company filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Related: U.S. corporate interest in cryptocurrencies remains strong despite implementation hurdles

While others make big moves with blockchain, some choose to stay small and build blockchains. MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes also told Bloomberg that only about 20 of his employees are dedicated to blockchain activities full-time. “It’s somewhat proportional to some of our expectations for revenue and profitability,” he said.

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