This Wall Street Journal article of the past week spotlights the unusual (for today) strategy of opening numerous bank branches by the nation’s largest such financial institution, J.P Morgan Chase. It comes at a time when most other banks are retreating from the branch ubiquity approach, something many had embraced in urban areas not 15 years before–when New Yorkers often complained that a favorite storefront had been replaced by “just another bank.” It also comes as consumer banking in the U.S. and especially abroad is increasingly conducted online and among younger patrons by phone app. Chase–perhaps influenced by the success that upstart rivals like Capital One and TD banks as well as credit unions have had in marketing their customer-friendliness–believes the human contact is a pathway to provision of high-margin services to banking clients. The Journal reporter contrasts Chase’s stance with that of another giant, Bank of America. A starker comparison might be to Citibank, a New York City institution which today has no branch east of Holbrook on Long Island. That leaves 65 miles of some of the biggest wallets around (think the Hamptons) to the likes of Chase.
https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/jpmorgan-chase-bank-branches-expansion-cc7973dc
Tim W. Ferguson 