JPMorgan’s UK consumer bank on hiring spree to bolster expansion efforts
JPMorgan’s British retail arm, Chase, has plans to take on hundreds of new recruits as it looks to expand the range of services offered to clients.
Since launching in September Chase has hired over 200 staff bringing staff numbers to 800. The fledgling bank now wants to grow its team to more than 1,000 employees to help it roll out investment, savings and consumer lending products, Sanoke Viswanathan the chief of the venture told Reuters.
“We had a plan, and we are definitely ahead of it,” Viswanathan told Reuters as he unveiled plans for expansion into additional markets. “We want to be in all the major European markets over time, all being well. The idea is to be pan-European.”
Viswanathan the head of JPMorgan’s international consumer business, said that JPMorgan’s first overseas consumer bank has already handled hundreds of millions of pounds of purchases across more than a million transactions with spending growing in the run up to Christmas.
In the UK the bank reportedly has plans to expand into investment and savings services through integrating the digital wealth manager Nutmeg which it has already acquired. If all goes well the bank will then push into consumer lending.
The new services are designed to help the bank make profit over time, but Chase is expected to be loss-making for several years according to Viswanathan.
Chase already provides banking services to 56m US households. The company’s main headquarters are in London while Support Teams are based in Edinburgh.
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