Qatar National Bank has recently adopted JP Morgan’s Kinexys blockchain technology to process its USD payments, providing faster transactions and around-the-clock services for fiat currency.
Summary
- Qatar National Bank has become the first bank in Qatar to adopt JPMorgan’s Kinexys blockchain platform to process USD payments on-chain.
- The move expands on QNB’s broader Web3 strategy, which includes launching a tokenized money market fund and piloting Ripple’s cross-border remittance network.
On Sept. 29., one of the largest financial groups in the Middle East, Qatar National Bank Group recently switched to using JPMorgan’s blockchain platform for completing U.S. dollar corporate payments. The Doha-based bank can now process U.S.-dollar based payments for business clients at a faster rate than ever before.
With this integration, QNB becomes the first bank in Qatar to start using JPMorgan’s Kinexys Digital Payments system to facilitate settlements of their corporate flows and automating on-demand multi-currency cross-border payments.
According to a recent report by Bloomberg, Kamel Moris, executive vice president of transactional banking at QNB, said that the blockchain helps the bank establish a USD payments system that provides clients with a 24/7 service window.
This is a major advancement when compared to other traditional banks that mostly process fiat currency transactions on weekdays and clients have to wait days for funds to reach their beneficiary.
“We can guarantee payments as fast as in two minutes,” Moris said to Bloomberg. “It’s a treasurer’s dream.”
JPMorgan’s Kinexys Digital Payments system was established in 2019 and currently handles around $3 billion worth of transactions on a daily basis. QNB Group began partnering with the blockchain unit as early as March 2025.
At the moment, the blockchain hosts eight major financial institutions from the Middle East and North African region, which includes First Abu Dhabi Bank, Saudi National Bank, Emirates NBD, Commercial Bank of Dubai, and Bank ABC.
Qatar National Bank’s web3 ventures
Although the integration of JP Morgan’s blockchain technology has yet to bring the bank closer to adopting digital assets, QNB is no stranger to tokenization and making use of the emerging web3 ecosystem in its operations.
In July 2025, Qatar National Bank partnered with DMZ Finance to launch the first tokenized money market fund within the Dubai International Financial Centre. Dubbed QCD Money Market, it received formal approval from the Dubai International Financial Centre.
In addition, at Web Summit Qatar 2025 QNB signed an MoU with Qatar Financial Centre. Under the agreement, QNB would allow fintech firms to gain access to its banking infrastructure. The QNB also vows to support innovation in digital assets, tokenization, embedded finance.
In 2021, the banking group partnered with Ripple to pilot RippleNet with QNB’s Turkish arm, Finansbank, to launch a cross-border remittance service. The goal of the project was to process real-time payments through the blockchain infrastructure.
