JPMorgan to launch digital retail bank Chase in UK next week

JPMorgan to debut its long-awaited digital retail bank Chase in the United Kingdom next week.

NewYork based bank initially announced ambitions to establish its Chase brand in the United Kingdom earlier this year. Rather than opening physical locations, JPMorgan will solely provide its services through a mobile app.

It is JPMorgan's first foreign extension of its consumer bank brand in its 222-year existence.

Sanoke Viswanathan, the head of the online initiative, told the Times and Financial Times newspapers on Friday that if the experiment is successful, the bank plans to grow into loans and investments, as well as extend into other nations, beginning with continental Europe, Reuters stated. 

JPMorgan is following in the footsteps of US competitor Goldman Sachs, which has been selling savings accounts to British clients since 2018.

Chase will first provide checking accounts as well as a rewards program. It also intends to offer investments and mortgages in the future.

The arrival of JPMorgan in the U.K. would put further strain on the country's conventional lenders NatWest, a state-backed institution famously tried and failed to compete with fintech rivals with a competing digital bank named Bó.

Under CEO Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan has made a series of acquisitions to counter the threat posed by fintech stars such as PayPal and Square.

In June, the bank decided to purchase an online wealth manager Nutmeg as part of its strategy to grow in the United Kingdom. Later the same month, it announced a plan to acquire OpenInvest, a San Francisco-based ethical investment platform.

With inputs from CNBC