Page 84 - Innovation Delaware 2018

FINTECH
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JPMorgan Chase & Co.
for the bank: “One of the ways we talk about it is, run the bank and change the bank.” That means production — keeping everything running smoothly at the enormous multi-national firm — and development — creating new apps and services. “When we think about innovation and technology and product design, it’s not just how are we doing against other banks, it’s really how does our mobile app compare outside of the industry,” Horne says, “because people want your app to be as easy and intuitive and capable as Uber or Amazon or Apple Music. They’ve grown accustomed to a very simplified way of conducting business.”
While Wilmington is well-known as the firm’s credit
card headquarters, JPMorgan’s operations in the First State encompass all the major arms of its worldwide business: credit cards, plus investment banking, asset and wealth management, and commercial banking.
“Delaware is an incredibly important market for our company,” Horne says. “We’re an enormous company around the world, yet we have a handful of strategic technology and operations hubs, and Delaware is one of those. And, Delaware is one of the most important sources of technology talent for our firm.” ID
STILL GOING STRONG
TOM HORNE
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is
the biggest bank in America, and it employs 10,000 people here in Delaware — more than 2,400 of them at the Delaware Technology Center just north of Wilmington. The thoroughly modern center, with its sleek spaces and massive array of rooftop solar panels, explains JPMorgan’s TOM HORNE, helps the bank compete with the Googles and Amazons of the world for the best tech talent.
So what do a few thousand technologists do all day? One of two things, says Horne, who serves as Delaware market leader
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TRENDS AND KEY FACTS
1. Fintech companies are making major moves in Delaware. Online loan provider SoFi purchased Claymont-based Zenbanx and is looking to hire 400 workers in Delaware by the end of 2018. JPMorgan Chase announced
plans to hire more than 1,800 Delawareans for its technology divisions between 2015 and 2019. Source: Delaware Online, Technical.ly
2. Between 2015 and 2020, employment in Delaware’s financial services industry was projected to grow 8.4% — compared to 1.6% in the U.S. overall.
Source: Delaware Growth Agenda
3. During the Great Recession, Delaware’s financial services industry greatly outperformed the U.S. as a whole, growing almost 22 percent between 2010 and 2015. ID
Source: Delaware Growth Agenda
82 DelawareBusinessTimes.com
PERSPECTIVES ON BITCOIN:
In late 2017, Bitcoin currency was worth $13,860 and had a market cap of $237.62 billion, according to online statistics firm Statista. The total number of Bitcoins in circulation was just below 17 million in mid-April.
Delaware became the first state to embrace blockchain, a technology underpinning Bitcoin, with the launch of the Delaware Blockchain Initiative. However, while blockchain is showing some promise as a storage system, Bitcoin itself is only beginning to mature. Here are some perspectives from Delaware’s fintech experts:
1. Bitcoin, in the eyes of one Delaware-based observer, is still very early in its development — the underlying protocol, the maturity of businesses operating on that protocol and the regulatory scheme around it all, says John Collins, founder of First State Fintech Lab. “My guess is, over the next year, it will probably mature faster than
it has in the past nine years,” says Collins. “Bitcoin is a good example of a pure, open financial network that has not been available before. What regulators are trying to figure out is how to mitigate the risks while also allowing innovation to flourish.”
2. Jim Kelly, formerly of ING and Capital One, sees the cryptocurrency as a technology in search of a market. “The idea of using blockchain to mine coins and create a store of value — in my humble opinion, it’s way overblown,” Kelly says. “I like the technology for how it can be used to better secure information as opposed to creating this currency out of thin air.”
3. But Shawn Sloves, a board member at the Delaware Board of Trade (DBOT), thinks his firm will be well-positioned once regulatory questions are settled in a few years and cryptocurrencies become available to trade. “Since none of the crypto securities are ever going to qualify to be in an exchange,” Sloves explains, “it’s going to require them to come to the Over the Counter market, and DBOT is going to be able to support that.” ID