J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said Monday that it plans to spend $40 million to build 20 branches in its North Texas markets over the next 18 months.
The company is also building branches - 16 of them - in New York metropolitan region.
Its blockbuster July purchase of Bank One Corp. of Chicago put new emphasis on branch-based retail services. For years the New York company had focused increasingly on wholesale banking and let its retail business flounder. The merger solidified a dominant position in Texas, where it has a deposit share of nearly 20% and 355 branches.
JPMorgan Chase has already opened three branches in and around Dallas, and three are under construction. It said the plan announced Monday would create 200 jobs.
Texas has been a hot state for expansion. Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. recently announced agreements to buy small banks there; Wachovia Corp. of Charlotte and others are buying out-of-state banks with a Texas presence.
The deal Citigroup announced in August for the privately held First American Bank SSB in Bryan would bring the New York company into Texas retail banking for the first time. But First American has just a 1% deposit share, plus $3.5 billion of assets and 102 branches around the state. The deal is set to close in the first quarter.
Last month Wells, of San Francisco, announced a $123.7 million deal to buy First Community Capital Corp. of Houston. It was Wells' first Texas bank deal in five years and is expected to close this quarter or early next year.
Wachovia said a desire to expand in Texas was one reason it agreed to buy Alabama's SouthTrust Corp., which has 61 branches there. The Federal Reserve approved the deal Friday; it is set to close Nov. 1. Wachovia had previously announced plans to build 150 Texas branches over three years.
