Global banking giant JPMorgan Chase is reportedly thinking about spinning out its Quorum blockchain project as an independent company.

Citing anonymous sources, the Financial Times and Reuters reported late Thursday that the move, if it happens, would be part of an effort to "increase the platform's appeal."

Talks regarding the spinoff are "still in the early days," according to Reuters.

Quorum, an open-source project, was launched in 2016 as a permissioned version of ethereum. JPMorgan debuted the project at the annual Sibos conference.

According to Reuters, a JPMorgan spokesperson declined to "comment on speculation" regarding the supposed move, but said that "Quorum has become an extremely successful enterprise platform even beyond financial services and we’re excited about its potential."

Reuters could not confirm whether Quorum's existing employees would join the spun-off entity. The project has notably been headed up by JPMorgan's Blockchain Center of Excellence executive director Amber Baldet.

It is similarly unclear what Baldet's plans are should Quorum be launched as an independent entity, an anonymous source told Reuters.

The bank's spokesperson told Reuters, "we continue to believe distributed ledger technology will play a transformative role in business which is why we are actively building multiple blockchain solutions."

Last year

, the Quorum team announced an interbank payments system in partnership with Australian bank ANZ and the Royal Bank of Canada.

Representatives for JPMorgan Chase did not immediately respond to CoinDesk's request for comment.

JPMorgan Chase image via Lewis Tse Pui Lung / Shutterstock