JPMorgan Chase & Co. recently revealed its updated, years-long expansion plan in the Carolinas, with Charlotte being a key market.
The New York City-based bank initially announced in 2018 its plans to open 40 branches across the Carolinas by 2022, with 20 of those being in Charlotte. With JPMorgan Chase outpacing that goal, now operating nearly 50 branches in the Carolinas, it said Aug. 1 that it aims to open more than 100 branches in the two states by the end of 2025.
That plan includes adding more than 200 employees to the company’s commercial banking business in Charlotte by the end of 2024. To accommodate the increased headcount, in mid-July Chase moved employees into 24,000 square feet of additional corporate office space at the Rotunda Building in SouthPark.
JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank with $3.9 trillion in assets, has more than 4,700 branches across the U.S. and roughly 15,000 ATMs. It has 19 branches in the Charlotte region. As part of its expansion plan, Chase expects to add four branches here by the end of next year.
Helping to lead the bank’s hiring efforts for its commercial banking business here is Dan Wilkening, Chase’s chief administrative officer of commercial banking.
During his local visit this week, Wilkening talked with CBJ about Chase’s ongoing expansion commitments here, his local hiring plans and why Charlotte was an attractive market for growth. His answers are edited for length and clarity.
What do JPMorgan’s updated expansion plans in the Carolinas and Charlotte involve?
We’ve been growing quite a bit, particularly with technology investments and in support of our growing business and customer service and loan operations, etc. And a couple of my leaders had come from organizations that had hubs here in Charlotte, and (my leaders) suggested that we consider doing that. And since then, we’ve hired about 100 or so people in those functions — the operations team, the customer service team, onboarding team and the technology teams. We’ve got senior leaders here that represent every one of those functions. We are expanding quite a bit all over the place, but certainly, on a percentage basis, here more than anything else just given how we’re growing so quickly. We took up the 24,000-square-foot space in support of hiring another couple hundred by the end of next year. We’re rapidly growing this team, so it’s going to become one of our core hub functions in the U.S., particularly in commercial banking.
Why were Charlotte and the Carolinas attractive markets for growth?
So we’ve had great success with the first 48 (branches) that they did. On the consumer side, it’s a growing part of the U.S., certainly in terms of the population and the business community. So it’s a terrific market to operate and serve the clients that are here in the Carolinas. Given the success that we’ve had here, we saw the opportunity to grow even further. And we’re doing that through the branches. The commercial banking groups continue to grow in terms of the number of bankers that are covering the Carolinas. So it’s a terrific market. And from my perspective, in terms of what I’m doing, it’s all about the talent that’s here.
What’s your outlook on the economy in Charlotte and the Carolinas?
The Southeast is a very fast-growing region in the U.S. economy, so it’s doing very well. Charlotte brings a lot of things to bear in terms of the capabilities in financial services, technology, education, etc. And so the growth story here is very strong, and I think stronger than many other places across the U.S. The business part of what we’re doing is just serving more clients. We want to do that here because there’s fantastic clients and we can bring our capabilities to in this market. Consumer markets are also very strong down here. So you can never predict what’s going to happen to the economy overall. But I think this is a great community that has great long-run potential, and it’s already proven that.
What are your top priorities for the Charlotte market moving forward?
In terms of product innovation, process innovation, just technology innovation in general would be a key priority for us. The client experience that we want to offer all of our clients at JP Morgan — this location will be a lynchpin for that. That’s one of the big growth areas that we’re going to see over the next 18 months is the people who are directly servicing those clients. So the client experience aspect, it’s a good client culture down here — in terms of that service orientation — and we’re taking advantage of that. When you break into a market that has very strong financial services already it can be hard to differentiate, but JP Morgan has really strong global capabilities that we bring to bear. And so what we talk about all the time is we deliver very locally. So we have local bankers on the ground. They’re very tied into the communities but we deliver, through those local bankers, global capabilities. So, we really distinguish ourselves in the marketplace, in financial services, with the breadth of capabilities that we can bring to the clients to help them with their businesses, to help them grow their businesses, etc. That’s the way we enter a market and that’s the way we very effectively compete in the market, by bringing those global capabilities to bear through the local banking teams that we have.
Read more of Wilkening’s interview in the Charlotte Business Journal.
