JPMC’s Dimon Calls Libra A ‘Neat Idea’ That Will ‘Never Materialize’

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co, said that Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency, Libra, is “ … a neat idea that’ll never happen,” according to reporting by Bloomberg.

Dimon was speaking on Friday (Oct. 18) at a panel at the Institute of International Finance in Washington.

Dimon said Libra wasn’t that special of an idea and that it’s very similar to JPMorgan’s own stablecoin offering, the JPM Coin.

Last week, several members of the Libra Association, a coalition meant to govern the coin, left the organization. Those included Mastercard, Visa, eBay and PayPal.

Dimon was joined by Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman; they talked about the importance of utilizing new technologies, as well as the risks involved in making those moves.

JPMorgan said it will spend upwards of $11 billion on technology this year, and Morgan Stanley said it will spend $4 billion.

Gorman said the financial industry is regaining its reputation after the financial crisis of a decade ago, and is starting to attract top talent again. He went on to say there were risks involved with moving financial information onto the cloud.

Dimon warned customers about the possibility that banks won’t be responsible for lost money if a company providing cloud services to a bank is hacked, and that the company could possibly be held responsible.

Earlier this week, U.K. FinTech company Revolut hired JPMorgan to raise $500 million in new equity from investors and to secure a $1 billion convertible loan.

Launched five years ago, Revolut has almost eight million customers, offering digital financial services through a mobile application including debit accounts, currency exchange, budgeting and person-to-person (P2P) payments. Late last month, the company announced it was expanding its partnership with Visa to include five new regions in 24 markets including Canada, Japan, Singapore and the U.S., bringing Revolut’s total global footprint to 56 markets.