BMW Helps JPMorgan Drive Blockchain-Based FX Payments

JPMorganChase said BMW has achieved a landmark using its Kinexys payments system.

The carmaker has become the first corporation to carry out a fully preprogrammed foreign exchange (FX) transaction using programmable payments on Kinexys, the banking giant said in a Tuesday (Dec. 9) news release.

According to the release, BMW’s treasury teams in the U.S. and Germany “pre-defined conditions” through Kinexys that when reached, allowed for an automated, end-to-end FX transaction from euros to U.S. dollars between Frankfurt and New York.

The process was transacted outside traditional settlement windows and with no manual intervention, which let the car company “optimize liquidity and achieve near-instant, multi-currency cross-border payments based on pre-set conditions,” the release added.

“We implement a stringent roadmap for real-time treasury on the basis of blockchain technology and other technological innovation developments,” said Stefan Richmann, head of BMW treasury. “The very first fully automated and programmable payment represents a leap forward for us and will allow us to make payment processes faster and more seamless.”

The release noted that the transaction is a first-of-its-kind using Kinexys digital payments blockchain deposit accounts and marks a major advancement in bringing FX on to the blockchain using fully automated instructions.

“BMW Group and J.P. Morgan Payments continue to collaborate closely to address the evolving needs of global treasury operations, driving innovation and efficiency in cross-border payments and liquidity management,” the release added.

Writing about the future of blockchain-based payments last month, PYMNTS noted that it is completely plausible that these transactions could expand “through a series of vertical footholds rather than a broad-based platform expansion.”

Each foothold, the report said, could be defined by specific economic pain points, such as invoice reconciliation, loyalty point settlement, corporate treasury netting and tax operation, instead of general-purpose transactions.

“If so, long-term blockchain payments may resemble an archipelago of specialized systems rather than a unified global settlement layer,” the report said. “That doesn’t diminish the technology’s potential for real-world value and utility; it simply reframes it.”

The success stories in this space, PYMNTS added, tend to be “narrow, domain-specific” and woven into existing industry workflows.

“Supply chain finance, cross-border corporate payouts, invoice factoring, loyalty points settlement and B2B treasury functions are all closed-loop or semi-closed-loop systems with well-defined participants and compliance requirements,” the report said.

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