JPMorgan Taps Former Bank of America Executive as New EMEA Vice Chairman

JPMorgan Chase & Co, one of the largest investment banks globally, has appointed Bob Elfring as its new Vice Chairman of Investment Banking for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) to bolster its presence in the M&A market. According to Reuters, Elfring is a former Bank of America Executive who led the EMEA investment banking affairs of the financial institution between 2012 and 2018.

The new JPMorgan executive will oversee the investment bank’s operations outside the UK. He will look forward to putting his focus into the Benelux region, working with Cassander Verwey, senior country officer for the Netherlands, the memo quoted by Reuters says.

Prior to his role at JPMorgan, Elfring was responsible for the investment banking coverage in Northern Europe and Benelux for Credit Suisse. Recently, he joined the equity firm, CVC Capital Partners as an advisor.

Moreover, he held some senior positions at Amsterdamse Investeringsbank, Rabobank and MeesPierson, having developed most of his experience within the Dutch market. Plus, Elfring started his career in the Netherlands at ABN AMRO.

As JPMorgan's Vice Chairman of Investment Banking for the EMEA Region, he will report to Dorothee Blessing and Conor Hillery, the investment bank’s Co-Heads for the EMEA region. Currently, Elfring is based in Switzerland, who moved to such a country after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, where he developed part of his career.

Recent Hirings

Per the recent key roles’ appointments from the investment bank, financial industry analyst, James Chen left Investopedia in February after three years to take up his new role at JPMorgan as the Head of Content Studio for the Wall Street Giant’s US Wealth Management division.

In April, Finance Magnates reported that JP Morgan partnered with Singapore’s leading bank, DBS, and investment company, Temasek, to launch a new cross-border Payments Payments One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. 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A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times. One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. 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The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Read this Term technology. Dubbed ‘Partior’, the newly formed company is planning to introduce more efficient digital clearing and settlement solutions through blockchain technology.