LONDON (Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase has bought Britain’s biggest digital wealth manager Nutmeg, as the U.S. giant gears up for a big retail expansion push in the UK.
Nutmeg – which has more than 140,000 clients and over 3.5 billion pounds ($4.89 billion) of assets under management – will be the bedrock of JPMorgan Chase’s retail digital wealth management offering internationally, Nutmeg said in a statement.
Nutmeg launched in 2012 and offers a range of investment and pensions products, but has struggled to turn a profit. In its most recent set of full accounts for 2019, the firm posted a pretax loss of 22 million pounds.
JPMorgan confirmed the acquisition and said it would complement the firm’s UK digital bank launch under its Chase brand later this year.
The bank is looking to take on established British high street rivals and a growing band of fintechs with ambitions to become a full-service retail bank, starting by offering current accounts.
“We are building Chase in the UK from scratch using the very latest technology and putting the customer’s experience at the heart of our offering, principles that Nutmeg shares with us,” said Sanoke Viswanathan, CEO of international consumer at JPMorgan Chase.
JPMorgan had already launched a product partnership with Nutmeg in November.
($1 = 0.7164 pounds)
(Reporting by Iain WithersEditing by Rachel Armstrong)
