JPMorgan marks 1,000th branch opening since 2018 expansion plans

JPMorgan Chase has built 1,000 new branches in seven years. That’s more locations than most of its competitors operate in total. 

The bank is marking the milestone opening in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday where Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon is attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The firm has roughly 5,000 branches, the most of any American bank, according to Federal Reserve data from March.

“It’s a great marker for us to be able to say, you can see our commitment over time and we’re on a marathon with regard to this expansion,” said Jennifer Roberts, the CEO of Chase Consumer Banking, in an interview. “A thousand [branches] is significant – a thousand is bigger than many regional competitors have at all.”

In 2018, JPMorgan operated bank branches in 23 U.S. states and said it would expand into as many as 20 new markets over the following five years with about 400 new locations. By 2021, the firm said it had branches in all 48 lower states. And last February, JPMorgan announced a new, multibillion-dollar investment to open another 500 new locations by 2027. 

JPMorgan said over the past seven years, Chase has opened more bank branches than all of its large bank peers combined. However, many of JPMorgan’s competitors have recently announced plans to expand their own footprints as the quest for deposits heats up.

Bank of America recently announced a branch expansion, with plans to open 150 new centers by 2027. And Wells Fargo plans to add branches, especially now that it’s fulfilled a regulatory consent order that had been constraining its growth. 

The industry-wide growth plans could help reverse a trend dating back to the 2008 financial crisis in which the U.S. has seen the net number of bank branches plummet. The combination of fewer overall banks and the advent of online banking has broadly made brick-and-mortar locations lower priority. However, in recent years, especially amid the population migration during and after the pandemic, banks have been reorienting their footprints to capture more deposits. 

Expanding in Charlotte puts JPMorgan head-to-head with rival Bank of America, which is headquartered there and has 71% market share in the city, according to KBW and S&P Global Market Intelligence data. 

Roberts said after this latest opening, Chase will have about 75 branches in North Carolina. She said that the bank is expanding there due to its “young, fast-growing population” and that there’s a “lot of wealth coming into that area” as well. 

JPMorgan said at its investor day in May that its newer branches are expected to ultimately contribute more than $160 billion in incremental deposits. The firm said each new branch breaks even within four years.

JPMorgan said when its expansion is complete, Chase will have added more than 1,100 branches, renovated 4,300 locations and entered 80 new markets. It also expects that 75% of the U.S. population will be able to reach one of its branches within an “accessible drive.”