Digital Wallet

Ten years ago they said software is eating the world now we say payments are eating the world as the world becomes more connected interoperability and data transfer between platforms two forces at the heart of payments and money movement will drive the future and the impact will be huge so huge in fact that only one word could fully capture what we’re seeing power plus which stands for platform online wallets embedded real-time plus value-added services so how are wallets shaping the future of payments traditionally wallets stored physical money but that definition is expanding and as it does wallets are becoming more essential research shows that by 2025 u.s wallets could represent a 4.6 trillion dollar market and that in addition to money they’ll store tickets receipts identity credentials and maybe even health records making wallets more like a supermarket this is because we’re not just transforming how we store and use money we’re also disrupting the concept of money in today’s economy money takes multiple forms including traditional fiat currency like cash but also cryptocurrency stable coins tokens and much more look at cryptocurrency with blockchain we’re transforming the concept of value being stored primarily in a bank account it’s revolutionary and people are taking note as of february 2021 there were 68 million blockchain wallet users globally and that’s expected to increase the more businesses and financial institutions accept cryptocurrencies another example is stablecoin stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are pegged to other assets like fiat money or tangible commodities like steel or gold it took five years for stable coins to reach a global supply of six billion but only four months in 2020 for that supply to double and now interesting use cases are emerging everywhere in 2019 facebook launched libra now dm to facilitate cross-border payments and in the same year we at jpmorgan became the first global bank to design a network to facilitate instantaneous payments using blockchain technology jpm coin is a shared ledger system that serves as a payment rail and deposit account ledger this is a powerful tool because it enables our clients to transfer us dollars held on deposit with jpmorgan facilitating real-time value movement and solving traditional hurdles of cross-border payments on top of all these innovations central banks are also watching the exponential growth of digital currencies and launching their own digital currencies to maintain sovereignty take china over a millennium after inventing paper money china was the first country to launch its own central bank digital currency and reports suggest another 81 countries may be following suit up from 35 a year ago still even with all the excitement around cryptocurrencies there are still barriers to wider acceptance like high price volatility issues around speed scalability merchant acceptance and the security of blockchain networks and we believe that to support the further adoption of digital currencies we must innovate in these areas together these are just some of the ways that these core themes are transforming the future of payments it’s all part of our larger power plus framework and our belief that payments will be everywhere morphing from the last step at checkout into an invisible seamless and enjoyable experience until they eat the world you