JPMorgan Chase & Co says its blockchain-based information network for payments is drawing the greatest interest in Japan, a nation long blamed for weak measures against money laundering.
More than 80 Japanese banks have expressed a willingness to join the Interbank Information Network (IIN), JPMorgan Chase executive director Daizaburo Sanai said.
That is the most from any single nation among the more than 360 lenders on the network worldwide.
Japanese banks might be seeking to use the platform to bolster measures against money laundering because it makes the screening of cash recipients “faster and more efficient,” Sanai said in an interview.
IIN is among several initiatives being developed using digital technology to speed up global money transfers.
Other companies, including Facebook Inc, are working on blockchain-based payments projects and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) has developed a new system to accelerate transaction processing.
JPMorgan Chase, which launched IIN as a pilot in 2017, has begun implementing it outside of Japan and plans to go live in that nation as soon as next month, Sanai said.
Under the platform, when a payment is flagged for confirmation, several parties can request and share information simultaneously, the US bank’s Web site says.
NOT COMPLIANT
Japanese banks have been under pressure to strengthen steps to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing since the Financial Action Task Force found deficiencies in the nation in 2014.
The Paris-based organization finished its latest on-site inspection of Japan last month and plans to announce the results next year, a Japanese Ministry of Finance official said.
Minimizing delays caused by inquiries between banks could enable “quick collaboration with law-enforcement authorities, which is an effective way” to fight money laundering, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank Ltd treasury operations department officer Takashi Endo said.
The Tokyo-based bank is among the lenders that have signed a letter of intent to join the platform.
OTHER OPTIONS
SWIFT, the global banking cooperative, has developed a Global Payments Initiative, which uses existing standards to enable cross-border payments in a faster and easier-to-track way than its traditional messaging system.
Facebook is working on its own digital currency for cross-border payments called Libra, while JPMorgan Chase has created JPM Coin.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to