By Michael J. Casey
A former high-level manager at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has
joined bitcoin startup Circle Internet Financial, becoming one of
the most senior Wall Street bankers to join a firm focused on the
virtual currency.
Circle, a startup that provides digital-currency wallet and
account management services to consumers, said it has hired Paul
Camp as chief financial officer. Mr. Camp, 46 years old, was
formerly a managing director and global head of J.P. Morgan's
transaction services business.
Mr. Camp is also one of the most senior bank executives to make
a move toward a company focused on bitcoin. Boston-based Circle,
led by technology entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire, has raised a total
of $26 million from investors such as Breyer Capital, Accel
Partners, General Capital Partners, Oak Investment Partners and the
Bitcoin Opportunity Fund.
Mr. Camp, who started in the new position this week, said in an
interview that he was attracted to the opportunity to use digital
currency to build a "cheaper, faster, better and more transparent"
global payments system. Mr. Camp hopes to use his global
transactional banking experience to help build out Circle's
international transfer capabilities, among other tasks.
While some former Wall Street traders or bankers have ended up
with firms that backed bitcoin, many current bankers are wary of
the digital currency because it threatens banks' lucrative role in
the payment system.
"The banks are absolutely interested in this space," said Mr.
Camp. "They are interested because of the growth and because of the
innovation...that may change their business model." But he added
that there "is a need to make sure that when you work with a
[digital currency] company, that they are very well buttoned-down
with the right team and right focus on risk and regulation."
In three years at J.P. Morgan, Mr. Camp led the transaction
services team, which handles cash for large global clients as part
of a wider $4.1 billion-in-annual-revenue Treasury services unit at
the bank. Transactions handled by that unit have helped make J.P.
Morgan the world's largest clearer of dollar-based payments and the
second-largest across all currencies.
For the first year at J.P. Morgan, Mr. Camp reported up to
Michael Cavanagh, who oversaw the broader division of treasury and
securities services and then went on to become co-CEO of the
investment and corporate banking division.
Before joining J.P. Morgan in 2011, Mr. Camp worked in a similar
capacity at Deutsche Bank AG's cash management services group,
where, in the early days of Europe's monetary union, he oversaw
that bank's emergence as the top euro clearer in the world.
Mr. Camp's move to Circle highlights a pickup in interest among
Wall Street bankers toward digital-currency technology despite a
decline in the price of bitcoin this year. Broker-dealer
SecondMarket Inc., which won nearly the entire batch of 50,000
seized bitcoins auctioned by the U.S. Marshals Service last week,
did so on behalf a syndicate of customers that included financial
institutions and high net-worth individuals, according to the
firm's head of trading, Brendan O'Connor.
Looking a decade out, Mr. Camp said he could foresee digital
currencies following the path of the euro and Chinese yuan with a
growing presence in global payments.
Write to Michael J. Casey at michael.j.casey@wsj.com
Access Investor Kit for JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US46625H1005
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires