JPMorgan Chase is close to starting its retail banking business in Germany, with Berlin chosen as the base for the project rather than Frankfurt, reported the Financial Times.
For JPMorgan, Germany is part of a wider effort to build a presence in continental Europe, where retail banking remains divided by national markets and led by domestic institutions
The bank introduced its digital brand Chase in the UK in 2021. Since then, it has gathered more than 3 million customers and £30bn in deposits, supported by rates that required the bank to absorb costs worth hundreds of millions of pounds at the outset. Jamie Dimon described plans in 2023 to widen that consumer banking business.
Now, three years on, and five years after JPMorgan drew attention to its UK expansion, the bank is expected to launch Chase in Germany within weeks. The German rollout was delayed by regulatory and technical issues, the report said. JPMorgan was unable to copy the UK banking system directly and instead had to adjust it to fit European infrastructure such as the Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa), as well as local rules including church tax deductions on interest income.