Jamie Dimon, a longtime JPMorgan executive who is entering his final chapter as CEO, has mapped out a major territorial expansion: building a broad, digitally-focused consumer bank outside the US.
From a WeWork office with checkerboard floors and a view of Berlin’s spaceship-like TV tower, JPMorgan is preparing to launch a Chase-branded bank in Germany. The largest European economy has more than 80 million inhabitants, huge savings – and an unprofitable banking sector, SEEbiz writes.
Dimon’s plan is to sweep through the major European economies, acquiring enough customers to create a new profit driver. JPMorgan is based in the United Kingdom, where it introduced Chase in 2021. The boost isn’t limited to Europe: in Brazil, he owns almost half of the fast-growing C6 bank.
JPMorgan plans to launch Chase in Germany in late 2025 or early 2026, people familiar with the project said. The American lender is already the largest investment bank in Europe.
Competing with foreign retail banks on their home turf is a business Dimon resisted before digital banking eliminated branch costs. He is stepping up just as rivals Citigroup and HSBC are abandoning decades-long efforts to become players in local markets around the world.
The gamble is that JPMorgan’s app — backed by the $17 billion the bank spends on technology each year — will attract customers from both traditional lenders and emerging fintech firms.
Building the digital bank from scratch took longer and was more complicated than JPMorgan expected, people familiar with the project said. Chase had hoped to launch in Germany in 2022, but pushed back the date after a series of delays, some of them said.
Some executives at Chase’s legacy U.S. business were skeptical of the expensive venture from the start, even though it had the support of Dimon and his right-hand man, Chief Operating Officer Daniel Pinto.
Both wanted to see if JPMorgan could expand its retail operations overseas as innovations in technology made it easier to open a bank in a new country. Instead of buying a network of branches, they could develop an app and attract customers without an expensive physical presence.
JPMorgan could apply a new technology that works well in the much larger US market.
Over two decades, Dimon shaped JPMorgan into the largest bank on Main Street in the US and a powerhouse in deal-making and trading around the world. JPMorgan is so big in the US, especially after taking over First Republican Bank in 2023, that it could struggle to grow even more.
