In this episode of Pay It Forward, host Emma Lawton, EMEA Payments & Global Kinexys Public Relations Lead, discusses the story behind Kinexys, the firm’s industry-leading blockchain business unit, with the colleagues bringing it to life: Alexandra Prager, Head of Kinexys Labs, and Nelli Zaltsman, Head of Platform Settlement Solutions for Kinexys Digital Payments. Hear how Kinexys serves as the foundational infrastructure for building next-generation financial products on-chain, backed by the scale, trust, and security of a global bank. You’ll also get a fun, inside look at what it’s like to work on the Kinexys team, the skills that set candidates apart, and the mindset that helps this team thrive. Whether you’re curious about digital assets, exploring your next role, or just love a good innovation story, this episode is for you. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of J.P. Morgan, its affiliates, or its employees. The information set forth herein has been obtained or derived from sources believed to be reliable. Neither the author nor J.P. Morgan makes any representations or warranties as to the information’s accuracy or completeness. The information contained herein has been provided solely for informational purposes and does not constitute an offer, solicitation, advice or recommendation, to make any investment decisions or purchase any financial instruments, and may not be construed as such. Any mentions of third-party trademarks, brand names, products and services are for referential purposes only and any mention thereof is not meant to imply any sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation.© 2025 JPMorgan Chase & Co. All Rights Reserved.
In this episode of Pay It Forward, host Emma Lawton, EMEA Payments & Global Kinexys Public Relations Lead, discusses the story behind Kinexys, the firm’s industry-leading blockchain business unit, with the colleagues bringing it to life: Alexandra Prager, Head of Kinexys Labs, and Nelli Zaltsman, Head of Platform Settlement Solutions for Kinexys Digital Payments.
Hear how Kinexys serves as the foundational infrastructure for building next-generation financial products on-chain, backed by the scale, trust, and security of a global bank. You’ll also get a fun, inside look at what it’s like to work on the Kinexys team, the skills that set candidates apart, and the mindset that helps this team thrive. Whether you’re curious about digital assets, exploring your next role, or just love a good innovation story, this episode is for you.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of J.P. Morgan, its affiliates, or its employees. The information set forth herein has been obtained or derived from sources believed to be reliable. Neither the author nor J.P. Morgan makes any representations or warranties as to the information’s accuracy or completeness. The information contained herein has been provided solely for informational purposes and does not constitute an offer, solicitation, advice or recommendation, to make any investment decisions or purchase any financial instruments, and may not be construed as such. Any mentions of third-party trademarks, brand names, products and services are for referential purposes only and any mention thereof is not meant to imply any sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation.© 2025 JPMorgan Chase & Co. All Rights Reserved.
Narrator (00:02):
Welcome to Pay It Forward, a podcast by J.P. Morgan Payments for J.P. Morgan Payments. Get to know our business and gain a better understanding of where we sit at the intersection of technology and finance. Did you know we move over $10 trillion globally each day through over 170 countries and 120 currencies at more than 5,000 transactions per second? (1)
(00:28):
Join us as we take you inside the stories, technology, and people that make it all happen.
Emma Lawton (00:39):
Welcome to Pay It Forward, a podcast by J.P. Morgan Payments for J.P. Morgan Payments. I'm your host today, Emma Lawton, EMEA Payments and Global Kinexys PR Lead.
(00:50):
I'm thrilled to be joined by two phenomenal colleagues from the Kinexys business, which is a division of J.P. Morgan Payments that uses blockchain technology to move money, information, and assets around the world. Please welcome Alex Prager, Head of Kinexys Labs, and Nelli Zaltsman, Head of Platform Settlement Solutions for Kinexys Digital Payments.
(01:10):
Let's dive in. Alex, please can you give us a brief intro into you and your role?
Alex Prager (01:16):
Hi, I'm Alex Prager. I'm the head of Kinexys Labs based in New York. Kinexys Labs is the research and development arm of Kinexys. We look at net new use cases, net new use of the technology itself, and work with clients both internally and externally on further scaling and developing our product.
Emma Lawton (01:35):
For people who don't work in this space every day like we do, can you explain in simple terms what blockchain is?
Alex Prager (01:41):
Of course. Simply put, blockchain technology is a digital way of storing data across a network and enables money and information to move quickly, securely, and transparently without needing to rely solely on traditional banking rails. This is important because banks and clients can transfer value more quickly, more efficiently, and on a global scale.
Emma Lawton (02:03):
Awesome, thank you. Nelli?
Nelli Zaltsman (02:06):
I'm Nelli Zaltsman. I'm the head of Platform Settlement Solutions. A lot of my role is really looking at how we bring our Payments products to non-J.P. Morgan platforms in the digital space, whether that be RWA platforms, whether it be other traditional finance platforms that require a settlement leg, or whether that just be learning from the ecosystem and how we can develop further.
Emma Lawton (02:27):
Brilliant, thank you very much.
(02:30):
Why now? Why is what we're doing at Kinexys helping J.P. Morgan lead in this space and why is it important?
Nelli Zaltsman (02:37):
Yeah, absolutely. One of my favourite things to remind people is that we've been in this space for 10 years. We are, full stop, an industry leader and we're the most sophisticated bank in this space. (2) Our mission starting 10 years ago was to make sure that our bank has the best tech available for the products it offers its clients. And through the years, because we started a while ago, we've been able to build out core infrastructure to learn as an organisation.
(03:06):
We've been live with products for over five years, starting with Liink, then what was known as JPM Point, and now Kinexys Digital Payments, and then Kinexys Digital Assets as well. And we do everything from information movement to value, movement of money, to the interaction of money and assets.
Emma Lawton (03:26):
Now, how did you end up there, Alex, as head of Labs, and Nelli, head of Product Settlement Solution?
Alex Prager (03:32):
I've been at the firm now almost 15 years. I've been in a few different areas, but it was by happenstance that I got introduced to blockchain. It was 2017. There was a lot of talk of Bitcoin and custody and I worked in the custody business at the time and was asked to take a look at this, which then introduced me to, at the time, the small group at the firm that was focused on blockchain before we even had a full business unit. And I was just amazed from the start. There were people running around putting alphanumerical codes on paper and putting them in lock boxes across the country.
(04:06):
And so that was really my introduction. Then I ended up joining that blockchain team in 2019 and then here the last six years really just working across the organisation, and then the last few years focused on the Labs side of really honing in on net new products and opportunities.
Emma Lawton (04:24):
Nelli, what about you? How did you end up here?
Nelli Zaltsman (04:26):
I'm a recovering lawyer as people like to say, but I started my career at a Big Law firm doing syndicated loans. You might think, "What does that have to do with blockchain?" But I came over to J.P. Morgan at the time in the legal department and they needed more staff for Payments legal. And the thing that I love most about J.P. Morgan and the way they develop people is that they don't really hire a person for a specific job. I think the firm really looks at capabilities and then puts you where there's need and anticipates you'll be able to learn.
(04:57):
So I didn't have any payments background, but I started in the Payments legal department coming over, and at the time, a lot of the products we were going live with blockchain were originating out of the Payments business.
Emma Lawton (05:09):
Alex, as head of our research and development arm within Kinexys, what is what we do changing the game for our clients? How is that informing what we do and why we do it in the work that you do in Labs?
Alex Prager (05:23):
So on the Kinexys Labs side and with Kinexys at large, I work with both of our Digital Payments and Digital Asset side. As Nelli mentioned, we've been at it now for about a decade and it's gone really fast. I remember the days of looking at, "Okay, what is tokenization? What does it mean to put cash on chain? What does it mean to do an end-to-end transaction?" And we did a lot of work figuring out exactly what we wanted to test and why, and one of the most interesting parts about it is being able to do that with our clients.
(05:53):
And so within Kinexys, we look across the entire bank, and so we are able to focus on end-to-end solutions. We are able to look at replatforming finance in general, which is an exciting mandate.
Emma Lawton (06:07):
You talk about replatforming finance, which I think is a brilliant phrase. How are we ensuring that our traditional finance works with these blockchain-native systems as well as we look to replatform finance?
Alex Prager (06:19):
Yeah, what I mean by that is there's a whole world of digital assets out there and digital cash products and how we think about moving assets, whatever type of asset they are, requires a lot of work, not just on the blockchain side, but also integrating with existing systems and compatibility with existing systems. Everything that we do has an element of traditional and new to it, so it's vital that we're looking from end-to-end when we talk about the systems that are involved with any product that we're working on because those are what's driving the business currently. And so when we think about transformation, you do have to bring the old with the new and make sure that as you push forward, you're bringing everything together.
Nelli Zaltsman (07:07):
To just give a specific example, in the Payments universe, we always think of our core value proposition as bringing the traditional banking rails of J.P. Morgan to our clients in a way that they can also access the new.
(07:19):
Historically, when we started what we now call the Kinexys Social Payments product, we were really focused on helping our multinational clients move money cross-border faster. And the way we did that was not by disregarding our legacy system, but rather supplementing it with blockchain rails so our clients could connect their balances in a number of locations, moving money from Singapore to New York 24/7 in two minutes from their traditional accounts, but through new rails.
(07:49):
And as we've evolved, we've mastered that internal movement, and now what we're really excited about is actually helping our clients further connect out their banking reach into broader ecosystems outside of J.P. Morgan without having to fragment liquidity outside of their banking relationship or take on different legal relationships outside of their banking relationships.
Emma Lawton (08:12):
And Nelli, you have beautifully alluded to our most recent announcement, which was probably one of the biggest pieces of news, certainly that I've been involved with with Kinexys since being at the firm, and that is the launch of our JPMD deposit token pilot.
(08:27):
Can you give us a bit of a deep dive into that? What is it? Why is it not a stablecoin? Tell us more about that.
Nelli Zaltsman (08:34):
Sure, happy to. The concept of a deposit token has been a dream of our team for a long time. The idea is to create a portable deposit product that lives outside of what we call the four walls of the bank.
(08:47):
There's a pretty good way to think about this. We have this concept of commercial bank money. It's really the deposit relationship between you and your bank, and that money is used for a lot of commercial activity. When we think about stablecoins, we think of a product that is really structured in a way where it's made up of a bundle of supporting assets on the back. So think of things like Treasurys. It's not necessarily structured legally like a deposit. And when you think about these things, you want to think about scalability as well as how using each would fit within your needs and structure.
(09:24):
On the deposit side, what we're really trying to do, and like I mentioned, we're already focused on institutional use cases, is provide the most uniform types of liquidity to institutional clients to be able to use in different markets that do not present challenges of fragmenting their liquidity. Plugging in and giving our customers ways to extend their banking partnerships and relationships with us into that ecosystem and get the best of it benefits everyone.
Emma Lawton (09:52):
To someone new at the firm, what's maybe one surprising thing that they may not know that may shift how they think about blockchain in the traditional banking sector? And Alex, I'll come to you first on that one.
Alex Prager (10:05):
We sit within Payments, but what's interesting is that on the Digital Asset side, our team comes from every part of the bank. We work with Asset Management, we work with the Private Bank, we work with Markets, Securities Services, Payments. While on the outside, it may not look like we would have that reach across the whole place, but we do. And so it's really incredible to have that depth of knowledge and diversity of thought that goes into how we look at implementing this technology and solutions utilising this technology across the entire firm.
Nelli Zaltsman (10:40):
I would also just add that I think oftentimes when people hear the word blockchain, they think of pure crypto utilisation or retail utilisation, and what excites me actually about what we do is the fact that it is institutional and we really are building core infrastructure for the banking sector. We partner with the industry, we also partner with central banks and governments.
Emma Lawton (11:03):
It excites me too, and from the outside looking in, people might go, "Oh, I had no idea that Kinexys or blockchain technology would even be involved in that." Can you share some of those unusual use cases that we've been a part of? And Alex, I know you have many of these, so coming to you here.
Alex Prager (11:20):
What folks may not know from looking outside in is just the absolute reach and depth of our clients across Payments and across the firm. And so there are clients focused on many different industries, many different problems to solve, and that has been so interesting and educational as I've gone through my own blockchain journey to look at really the reach of the technology and the types of problems that are out there.
(11:47):
I think what's even more fulfilling sometimes on our side is that we've got this amazing mandate to also push the bounds of the technology itself. And so that's really something that cemented ourselves in the last five to 10 years is not just the implementation piece, which is important, but also how do you remain a thought leader in the space? How do you remain a thought leader with the technology? And the way to do that is to get hands-on with it.
(12:13):
So over the years, we've done different projects dating all the way back to even 2017, 2018. We've done a successful payment in space between satellites. Last year we did a project with a concept called DePIN, so decentralised physical infrastructure networks, connecting different physical objects. Back in 2022, did our first DeFi trade on public blockchain, and we used digital identity to be able to verify the traders' identities and capabilities before executing on that, and we did that with some partners. (3)
(12:46):
And so even years back looking to today, it's these types of experiments and thought leadership that help us look at what is possible with the technology, which often seeds the thought for the end products that we do maybe years later because you won't know what's possible until you get hands on it and figure it out, and the learnings that we've had along the way have really influenced our own roadmap and product thoughts.
Emma Lawton (13:12):
I mean, I never thought I'd hear Kinexys and space in the same sentence, but here we are. I'm here for it.
Alex Prager (13:18):
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that's so special about this business as well is that from the top down, it's how can we continue to iterate? How can we continue to think differently? And how can we continue to work with our clients and the industry on what needs to be done? And that in itself is very fulfilling.
Emma Lawton (13:35):
Totally. And Nelli, I know you and I have had previous conversations around the multicultural vision of the team. Can you expand on that a little bit more as well?
Nelli Zaltsman (13:43):
Alex Prager (14:09):
We have the payments part, we've got the digital asset part. We do work on things like digital identity and other areas, and it's really a privilege to be able to bring all those components together.
Emma Lawton (14:19):
What would you say are the mindsets, the skills that someone looking to get into Kinexys today should think about honing or should have?
Alex Prager (14:26):
People who are inherently curious, asking questions.
Nelli Zaltsman (14:30):
Not just asking why, but maybe also being able to draw those parallels and to think, "How could you do it now, but with new technology or circumstances?"
(14:41):
Frankly, just wanting to be in an unprecedented space. I think that's a specific work experience. So we don't really have very routine jobs, and I think people who work on our team like that. Every day is very different and you very much do have to be also a self-starter. Being a team player and being collaborative is a big part of our culture. What we do is hard but fun, and we also rely on each other a lot.
Emma Lawton (15:09):
And how do you balance being comfortable with the uncomfortable while working in the world's biggest bank? Because that's hard.
Alex Prager (15:17):
It's a juggle, but it's a really fun one. I think for me personally, I always make sure that I'm keeping up with the external ecosystem as well as all of the internal work that's going on. And while it all may be net new, you do need to be solidly rooted in how the firm works, what the rules are, and how we operate, right? We're a humongous firm. There's a lot going on. And so I think being well-versed in how we operate is really important to then know how to drive something new. We're not necessarily going astray on the side, but we do need to know how to move within the firm and move with the firm.
(15:54):
But what's even cooler, I think, when you work in innovation at a place that is so massive and large is the scale of what you can achieve. And when you're doing work and you're launching products and you're launching it from a large bank, the clients that you get to interact with and the products that you get to build, and Nelli was talking as well about the global region or global community, I think it's a clear benefit of doing what we do from the seats that we do it in.
Nelli Zaltsman (16:20):
If you're interested in the space and you have the right mindset, I don't think anyone should ever count themselves out because we have people from all kinds of backgrounds professionally and everyone's perspective helps.
Emma Lawton (16:32):
What is the one thing, and I am going to push you for one thing, that you wish everyone knew across the firm and externally about working in Kinexys?
Nelli Zaltsman (16:43):
We often get put into a very narrow box as to what it is that we do, and it's very inaccurate because we probably have the widest box of any team in the organisation. Basically, if it touches the bank and it can be made better by the technologies that we work with, we look at it and we think about it.
Alex Prager (17:05):
I don't think people know the amount of stuff that actually gets thrown at the wall and put on the chopping block at any given time. As Nelli said, everything we are building is purpose-built, it connects, it has pieces that all come together for very good reasons, but even within innovation, we're trying to innovate as well. And so there's a tonne of ideas, I think, all the time that don't get to see the light of day themselves, but are really influential in delivering our end products.
Emma Lawton (17:33):
How many of those which have ended up on the cutting floor have you been emotionally attached to?
Alex Prager (17:38):
More than one.
Emma Lawton (17:39):
Yeah. What is your proudest moment that you've had thus far working with Kinexys?
Alex Prager (17:46):
Can I have two, or is this a one?
Emma Lawton (17:49):
It's meant to be a one, but I'll give you two.
Alex Prager (17:52):
Okay. I think on my side, when we were able to actually connect to a public chain for the first time in J.P. Morgan's history in 2022 (4), that was honestly a super proud moment. And then related to that is a lot of folks in the team have been here for quite a while and we've grown up together and just seeing where everyone is today and being on a call and looking around and just seeing the depth of knowledge and excitement and camaraderie is just the best.
Emma Lawton (18:18):
I love that.
Nelli Zaltsman (18:19):
It's really hard when you've been here this long because everything is so emotional for us. But one, and this is going to sound weird, but the first time we were able to charge revenue for blockchain deposit accounts, and two, I have to say, it is the launch of the pilot of JPMD because that was the original dream of our product. (5)
Emma Lawton (18:42):
Alex, Nelli, thank you so much for sharing your experiences and giving us the ins and outs of Kinexys at J.P. Morgan. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We hope this conversation sparks new ideas, fuels your curiosity, and inspires you to lead with purpose, and of course to pay it forward. Until next time.
Narrator (19:03):
Thank you for tuning in to Pay It Forward, a podcast by J.P. Morgan Payments for J.P. Morgan Payments. Stay up to date on the latest stories, technology, and people powering payments by subscribing on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favourite podcast platform.
(19:19):
Keep pushing boundaries and we'll keep moving the payments world forward one transaction at a time.
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