[Photo:  rct-systems.com]

On Friday, JPMorgan announced that it left the large bank blockchain consortium led by R3 CEV. R3, which began operating in September 2015, seeks to help the financial sector develop shared blockchain technology to run some of their most cumbersome and expensive processes.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan is still involved in other blockchain consortiums – newly-formed Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, Axoni, Digital Asset Holdings and Hyperledger Project, which is led by the Linux Foundation.

In addition to its involvement in  financial industry and cross-industry consortiums, JPMorgan Chase has its own proprietary technology projects. The bank has a New York technology hub which it’s planning to triple in size in the coming years.  The firm is in discussions with Brookfield Property Partners to lease an additional 300,000 square feet on the upper levels of 5 Manhattan West near Hudson Yards. And has recently set up hubs across the U.S. for teams specializing in big data, robotics and cloud infrastructure to find new sources of revenue and reduce expenses and risks.  All told, JPMorgan Chase is spending nearly $10 billion a year on technology  [See Bloomberg, 4/19]