£8bn in 8 months: Chase wins 500k UK customers

First numbers reveal the fruits of JP Morgan’s $450m bet on Britain.

JP Morgan last night shared a first look at the early success of its multi-million dollar bet on launching a challenger bank in the UK.

Chase, which only launched in September 2021, has already reached half a million UK customers according to figures published as part of the US banking giant’s 2022 investor day.

For the 2022 financial year JP Morgan said Chase lost around $450m due to the costs of getting the UK bank up and running but is expected to break even in 5-6 years as it expands into “multiple products” and “full-service banking”.

Besides reaching 500,000 customers, the other headline figures included hitting $10bn (£8bn) in deposits and over 20m transactions in the eight months since launch.

At this stage, JP Morgan said Chase is seeing deposit levels per customer which are around double what other UK challenger banks saw in their first year in market.

Chase’s early success isn’t surprising, given the bank has been marketing and promoting its current account heavily.

Just earlier this month Chase launched a lucrative referral scheme where customers could refer up to 20 friends and family for a £20 reward as long as the person deposits £20 within the first month.

Chase’s debit card pays 1 per cent cashback on all spending, 5 per cent interest on small change roundups and the bank offers an instant-access savings account with 1.5 per cent interest.

JP Morgan also revealed that since its acquisition of Nutmeg in the UK, the robo-advisor has added $1.5bn in net new money from its customers.