JP Morgan Chase muscles into Silicon Valley with new fintech campus
JP Morgan Chase to build “fintech campus” in Silicon Valley
JP Morgan Chase is building a new “fintech campus” in California’s Silicon Valley for more than 1,000 employees.
It will feature “a modern workplace design” and “state-of-the-art technology”, according to the bank.
The new campus will mainly house the staff of the bank’s Chase Merchant Services division (the second largest US processor of card payments for merchants) and will open in Palo Alto in 2020.
It will also accommodate WePay, a paytech start-up bought by JP Morgan last year (at present, WePay is based in Redwood City, California). It currently has around 275 employees, but Bill Clerico, WePay’s co-founder, has indicated that the firm will make hundreds of new hires for the jobs at the “fintech campus”.
At its annual conference in early 2018, JP Morgan emphasised its digital products strategy, particularly in payments, as it believes handling more consumer and business payments will rope in more deposits and loans.
Matt Kane, CEO of JP Morgan’s merchant services division, says the bank is keen to attract local tech talent and is prepared to pay the high costs of operating in Silicon Valley. The campus will complement the bank’s paytech centres in Texas and Florida.
On a broader tech scale, JP Morgan employs around 50,000 people for various IT jobs. This year’s budget for the division is $10.8 billion (up from $9.5 billion in 2017), with $5 billion set aside for new investments.
