JPMorgan Chase has the most bank branches in the U.S.—and it’s about to get 500 more.
Another 1,700 also will be renovated as part of a three-year expansion plan that should please CEO Jamie Dimon, who’s decried remote work and argued that business is best done in person.
“In general, there’s nothing like face-to-face,” Dimon said in an interview to NY1 on Nov. 27 after unveiling construction on the bank’s new Manhattan headquarters.
Dimon repeatedly has expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of remote work and flat-out discarded it as a possibility for managers. Following Dimon’s marching orders, JPMorgan even called back traders for in-person work in September 2020, when most companies were still allowing remote work to help battle the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dimon has similarly argued that for the client-facing services, consumers also derive value from in-person interactions.
“If you go back 20 years ago, they were kind of operational centers, a lot of tellers, which, you know, process checks. Now there’s two tellers, there’s eight people, so they’re generally small branches, but there’s advisors,” Dimon told NY1. “People, I call it, ‘like to visit their money.’ The nature of the branches changes, but people still go there.”
Jennifer Roberts, CEO of Chase consumer banking, said in a company statement announcing the plan that the firm’s locations see daily foot traffic of 900,000 people—roughly 40 million annually. Among those in-person customers, small business owners represent one of the most active segments, with 84% visiting a branch at least once a month.
As part of its latest expansion, the bank said it’s looking to open more branches in low-income, rural communities and areas with large Black and Latino populations. Renovations are planned for locations in Boston, Charlotte, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia, among others, and approximately 3,500 positions will be filled to help handle additional customers. Since 2018, the bank has added some 650 branches across 25 states.
Roberts said that, in responding to community feedback, the bank also wanted to establish a greater presence among traditionally underbanked Black and Latino populations. “Too many people,” Roberts said in the statement, “lack access to financial tools and resources that are critical to their financial health.”