JP Morgan draws the line on staff voicemail to cut costs

Many of JP Morgan's employees will no longer have voicemail once a new cost-cutting plan is rolled out. 

 

The bank is getting rid of the service, which costs $10 (£6.5) per month per person, because it says many of its staff simply don't need it. 

 

“We realized that hardly anyone uses voicemail anymore…we’re all carrying something in our pockets that’s going to get texts or e-mail or a phone call to you,” said Gordon Smith, chief executive of JP Morgan's consuemr and communty bank. 

 

The plan was first put forward in February, and one 135,900-people unit has already undergone the cuts. Those affected will be in non-client facing roles, such as operations and IT, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

 

It is part of the bank's wider effort to cut the consumer and community unit’s expenses by $2bn (£1.3bn) by 2017. Smith believes it is on track to meet these reductions.

 

“We’ve laid out pretty good plans around branch automation, what we’re doing with digital and mobile…the mortgage servicing space,” he said. “The vast majority of [the expense savings] are just where we want them to be.”

 

It's not the only company to make this money-saving move – at the end of last year, Coca-Cola got rid of voicemails at its headquarters in Atlanta.