Former JP Morgan executive joins Circle’s leadership team

Circle Internet Financial Ltd. CEO Jeremy Allaire

In a company blog post published last week, Jeremy Allaire, CEO of the digital-currency firm Circle, announced the company has recruited former JP Morgan executive Paul Camp as its new Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Treasurer, and EVP of Financial Operations.

“Paul’s exceptional global skill set and relationships will also be critical in the company’s continued global expansion,” said Allaire in the post.

Before joining Circle, Camp served as Managing Director and Global Head of JP Morgan Chase’s Transaction Services business, a $3.4-billion revenue global business offering treasury and payments infrastructure to financial institutions worldwide. Camp held a similar role at Deutsche Bank, helping to turn the organization into the number one Euro settlement and payments platform in the world and a foundational counterparty to commercial banks worldwide that traded with consumers and businesses in the newly formed Euro-based currency zone.

“We’ve been interested in trying to find an additional partner on the team with highly relevant leadership capacity,” said Allaire in an interview with the New York Times about Camp’s hiring. “Paul had grown up in that core payments infrastructure. That was really a key piece of what we were looking for.”

The Times said big banks such as JP Morgan have long dominated the business of international transactions, but a number of startups like Circle, which allows customers to purchase, sell, store, and transfer Bitcoin, are seeking to overturn the established system of money transfer.

“Our view is that consumer finance, what people think of as retail finance — that arena is ripe for disruption,” said Allaire to the newspaper. “Bitcoin is absolutely a core platform and asset format that we are dependent on to build this business.”

Camp’s decision to join Circle signals that leaders in the traditional financial services sector are taking digital currency seriously, said the Times. The newspaper said Camp seems to have broken away from JP Morgan’s position on digital currency. In an interview with CNBC last January, JP Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin “a terrible store of value” that could be “replicated over and over.”

“The questions isn’t whether we accept it,” said Dimon, “The question is, do we even participate in people who facilitate Bitcoin.”

Allaire hopes to sway such a negative perception, telling the Times he is looking to Camp to play a big role.

“We need to build banking relationships all around the world to offer our products,” said Allaire. “His background and skill set will be really helpful.”

Jeremy Allaire’s photo via Circle.com’s news page