JP Morgan has rebranded its Onyx blockchain unit to Kinexys by JP Morgan. The move was announced today by Umar Farooq, the global co-head of JP Morgan payments during the Singapore Fintech Festival.
As we previously reported, the blockchain platform has executed more than $1.5 trillion in notional value since launch, with current volumes exceeding $2 billion daily. That’s still tiny compared to the $10 trillion in conventional payments that the bank processes daily.
The new name combines the concepts of “kinetic” and “connection”, to reflect the worldwide movement of money, assets and financial information using the efficiencies of DLT.
The highest profile Onyx solution is the blockchain based bank account system, JPM Coin Systems, which enables corporates to move money between JP Morgan accounts in different countries, in real time and 24/7. That is now rebranded to Kinexys Digital Payments. Brevan Howard Digital Assets is a new client of the solution.
Onyx Digital Assets, now Kinexys Digital Assets, is an umbrella for multiple solutions that include intraday repo, tokenized collateral and bond issuance. Singapore’s OCBC is the latest bank to start using the repo solution.
Onyx’s first product was Liink, the blockchain based payments messaging network that enables sharing of data about conventional payments to reduce delays because of compliance of other queries. It is renamed to Kinexys Liink.
One of the most logical moves is the rebranding of the slightly awkward sounding Blockchain Launch to Kinexys Labs.
In other news, the unit is planning to support foreign exchange as part of Kinexys Digital Payments. JP Morgan was previously involved in DeFi-style FX trials using automated market makers as part of one of the first Singapore Project Guardian tests.
Additionally, Kinexys Digital Assets and Kinexys Labs is running a proof of concept for on-chain privacy, identity and composability.
Why rebrand?
The bank is spinning the rebrand as a positive step, as one would expect. However, the trigger is likely trademark issues. Given Onyx is a generic word, it would encounter potential challenges. A company that was already using the name might have objected to trademark applications or even alleged infringement.
Last June the bank applied for trademarks for Onyx Digital Payments and Onyx Digital Assets. The records show the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) examiner sent initial refusals for the trademarks on various grounds, including partial overlaps with existing trademarks for similar use cases and other applications that pre-dated these applications. Given JP Morgan’s lawyers didn’t respond, the applications were treated as abandoned.
There’s also an OnyxCoin, as in a cryptocurrency, something the bank would likely not want to be confused with.
