According to a report from the website “Cripto247”, Lori Beer, JP Morgan’s global chief information officer (CIO), was quoted as saying that “blockchain will replace existing technology” and that the company is evaluating the use of blockchain technology in a press conference last week. The press conference was held in one of JP Morgan’s offices in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

JP Morgan is one of the biggest financial companies in the world and one of the largest banking institutions in the United States. While the current statement from JP Morgan’s CIO is positive, around one year ago, the JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon was famously quoted as saying “Bitcoin is a fraud”.

Dimon later said that while he doesn’t think cryptocurrencies will ever be accepted, he thinks there is a place for blockchain technology in the future. Recently, in an interview in the Harvard Business Review, his views on blockchain technology was positive, while still being a skeptic towards cryptocurrencies. Dimon also confirmed that JP Morgan would be testing out blockchain technology.

During this conference, Lori Beer has confirmed that blockchain is one of JP Morgan’s top three priorities, alongside artificial intelligence and APIs. JP Morgan also has their own open-source blockchain which is based on Ethereum and called Quorum. The objective behind the development of Quorum according to one of JP Morgan’s experts was to make the ecosystem grow and give something back to the crypto community. JP Morgan is also connected to the Hyperledger Project and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

Beer believes that the application of the technology in business is more important to them than the technology itself. They are looking not only for ways to cut their costs but also for opportunities to develop new products. The applications that JP Morgan uses their blockchain for right now is to simplify the processing of payments and the storage of customer information regarding KYC (Know-Your-Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) during transactions from other banks.

When Beer was asked about JP Morgan’s view on cryptocurrencies, she said that the bank only supports what is regulated and that they are evaluating what is happening with cryptocurrencies. When asked about ICOs, she did not want to respond.

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