Jamaican bourse teams up with Canadian fintech firm for crypto, token trading

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The Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) will soon offer cryptocurrencies to its customers. The bourse has partnered up with Blockstation, a Canadian fintech company, to facilitate the new change. In a press release on August 14, JSE officials said they believe it’s high time they opened their doors for the digital currencies.

The exchange signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Blockstation to help build a platform that will allow clients to trade in cryptocurrencies. Clients are expected to start trading on the new platform by the end of 2018. It is, however, unclear which cryptocurrencies will be offered by the exchange.

According to Marlene Street Forrest, managing director of JSE, the new platform is in line with JSE’s existing products. Under the deal, Blockstation will provide the technology need to create the new platform while JSE will be in charge of the infrastructure, which will be networked to the crypto platform.

JSE plans to explore all the possible potentials of blockchain, particularly to improve services and create a one-stop shop for its clients. After from listing cryptocurrencies, the bourse is also planning on developing its own cryptocurrency.

While speaking to reporters, Blockstaion co-founder and chief enterprise architect Jai Waterman said the Canadian fintech company has been working with the JSE for about six months now. He added that they have managed to create a custom version of the platform featuring special tools like market manipulation tracker.

JSE is not the first stock change to create a trading platform for digital currencies. Earlier this month, the second largest stock exchange in Germany, the Stuttgart Borse, announced its plans to create a new platform for initial coin offerings (ICOs) and also for multilateral cryptocurrency trade. According to reports, the new exchange was in response to investors’ demand for a secure and regulated space to trade with cryptocurrencies.

JSE new platform is still under development. Forrest said the exchange is in no hurry to finish the new platform, noting that they are working to ensure that the final product will be safe for their customers to use with little to no flaws.