J.P. Morgan Plans to Use E-Wallet to Circumvent Payment Competitors, Possibly Cryptocurr…

J.P. Morgan has reportedly been working on an “e-wallet” to help companies handle payments better and become more like banks.

J.P. Morgan’s strategy is that helping companies like Airbnb, Lyft, and Amazon.com give customers virtual bank accounts and “offer perks such as car loans or discounts on home rentals to those who keep money stashed there” to foster customer loyalty. In return, these companies have to pay less in payment processing fees, and J.P. Morgan gets guaranteed payment processing and money handling for these companies. The wholesale payments business has significant effect on J.P. Morgan since it contributed 10% to J.P. Morgan’s $109 billion in revenue last year.

An Accenture report showed that “banks over the next five years risk losing 15% of their revenue — around $280 billion — due to escalating competition from non-banks such as Adyen and massive tech companies from PayPal to Apple”. Takis Georgakopoulos, who runs wholesale payments…