As the Financial Times (FT) reported Thursday (Sept. 4), America’s largest bank plans to launch in Germany in the second quarter of 2026.
Chase’s first product in that country will be a savings account, “because of the popularity of savings products in Germany,” Daniel Llano Manibardo, J.P. Morgan’s head of German retail banking, told the FT. He added that its operations in the country would be “gradually expanded.”
The announcement follows reports from earlier in the year that the bank was planning to bring the Chase brand to Germany.
“It has always been clear to us that we want to introduce Chase not only in the U.K., but also in Germany and other European countries. We have ambitious plans,” CEO Jamie Dimon said in a 2023 interview with Handelsblatt, a German newspaper.
“In Germany, ‘Chase’ is not yet so well known, but worldwide it is a strong brand. We are also a trustworthy bank with a strong balance sheet — and private customers know that.”
The FT report notes that competition in Germany’s retail banking market is intense, with major players like Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank facing off against smaller savings and co-operative banks, along with a number of FinTechs.
Traditional banks, the report added, are paring down their brick-and-mortar operations, while digital challengers enter the market. Among these are Spain’s BBVA which debuted a digital service in Germany earlier this year.
And research by PYMNTS Intelligence finds that Germany is an especially plugged-in country, with 71% of consumers there saying they had used a digital wallet in the last year, particularly for shopping and online banking.
PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster examined the tensions between traditional and digital banking in a report in June, writing that FinTechs have been able to attract younger users by “meeting them where they are,” that is, on mobile devices.
“Cash App and Venmo turned peer-to-peer payments into a social experience. Yet, none of these players are reinventing financial products,” Webster wrote. “They’re reinventing the packaging, the experience, the delivery and the economics of getting them into the digital hands of their customers.”
She also cited additional PYMNTS Intelligence data which shows that a quarter of Gen Z have their main bank account with a digital-only bank.