Chase UK, J.P. Morgan’s digital-only bank, will begin to roll out its first customer credit cards in the next step of its international expansion.
The Chase UK credit cards will be distributed to 25,000 initial eligible customers, a testing period to analyse the card’s popularity and use cases for its benefits.
The credit card has 0% interest rates, along with no foreign exchange or annual fees. Chase UK customers will also be able to check their credit scores from the digital banking app.
Before the roll out of its credit card yesterday (19 November), Chase UK only offered its UK customers current accounts. These have proven popular, acquiring over two million customers since launching three years ago.
Some of the benefits of a Chase UK current account involves competitive savings rates and cashback rewards, and has gone on to take in more than £20bn in deposits. The digital bank then began to offer savings and investments accounts too.
Chase UK’s savings offering was supplemented through J.P. Morgan’s acquisition of online investment management platform Nutmeg in 2021. The company allows Chase UK to personalise investment preferences and tailor saving needs of the customer to their own goals.
This expansion of Chase UK is a concerted effort by J.P. Morgan to take advantage of the hotbed of digital banking adoption seen across the UK over the past several years.
UK native fintechs like Revolut and Monzo have more than 10 million customers each and are continuing to diversify their services and offerings to customers with competitive forex rates, interest rates on savings and even cryptocurrency adoption.
Whilst Chase UK may lag behind Revolut and Monzo’s large UK customer bases, it is looking to separate itself from the leading two digital banks with its initial offerings of 1% cashback on all purchases and a 5% AER of its savings ‘round-up’ pots.
With the backing of the largest US bank by assets, J.P. Morgan has placed significant emphasis on the UK market for its digital banking strategy, with potential plans to expand across Europe if it can consolidate its position in the UK.
The Financial Times revealed that J.P. Morgan is looking to Germany first as part of its potential European expansion through the hiring of Daniel Llano, former ING Head of Retail to become its head of retail banking in Berlin.
