Oliver Harris

Spear's Review

JPMorgan’s colourful history with all things crypto looks set to continue with the work of fintech upstart Oliver Harris, now running the private bank's digital assets strategy in North America.

Though its CEO initially labelled cryptocurrencies a ‘scam’ before backtracking, it’s now yet another bank looking at them. The U-turn was complete when Harris took on the new role as head of crypto-assets strategy, reporting to Umar Farooq, head of blockchain initiatives at the bank.

Harris told Spear’s to think of his work as like running a centre of excellence that connects the strategy, the thinking and the doing around crypto assets. In 2019 it launched JPM Coin for immediate transfer of payments between institutional clients.