What’s Europe’s biggest investment bank? It’s a trick question: the answer is JPMorgan Chase. The US lender tends to dominate the region when it comes to M&A and capital raising, much to the chagrin of local lenders. Its new online-only German bank, opened last week, will test whether it can make a similar mark in the consumer world.
Targeting the European consumer is a swerve for JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon, who used to dismiss international retail banking as a fool’s game. Between local regulations, cultural differences and the need for expensive branch networks, there were few economies of scale from operating the same brand in Berlin, Germany and Berlin, New Hampshire.
Now, he thinks technology has changed the equation. Chase’s first foreign retail venture, which opened in the UK in 2021, has gone fairly well. The bank’s challenge is to show that the model can be efficiently transplanted between markets.