JPMorgan to shutter Finn and shift customers to Chase Mobile

Less than a year after launching a standalone mobile bank it dubbed Finn, JPMorgan Chase is planning to drop the brand and shift Finn’s customers to its namesake mobile product.

Finn will be turned off Aug. 10, and all customers will be automatically moved to the Chase Mobile app, the company said in a message posted online. Customers, many of them millennials, were first notified of the decision Thursday and a company spokesman also confirmed the plan. Finn’s customers will receive a Chase debit card to replace their Finn-branded debit cards.

During Finn’s brief existence, JPMorgan learned that “our millennial customers don’t need a separate brand or experience,” spokesman Pablo Rodriguez said in an emailed statement.

chase
A man stands outside a JPMorgan Chase & Co. bank branch in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, April 14, 2010. JPMorgan Chase & Co. said a "broad-based" economic recovery boosted first-quarter earnings 55 percent, surprising analysts with record fixed-income trading revenue and a better-than-expected outlook for consumer credit. Photographer: Jin Lee/Bloomberg

“We know the Chase brand is already among the most popular banks for millennials, so we’re leaning in on that, rather than continuing to build a brand from scratch,” he said.

Finn’s users know that JPMorgan operates the app, as its officially called Finn by Chase and uses the Chase circular logo. Some of Finn’s exclusive features, such as an automatic-saving plan, will be implemented on the Chase mobile banking app.

A degree of cannibalization also came into play into JPMorgan’s decision, as more than half of Finn’s customers also had an additional Chase Bank account, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez declined to say how much JPMorgan spent to develop and maintain Finn.

JPMorgan is among several banks that have recently developed separately branded online-only or mobile banks. Wells Fargo created Greenhouse and MUFG Union Bank operates PurePoint. Banks have pursued the strategy as a way to lure millennial customers and accelerate deposit-gathering in geographic areas where they don’t operate physical branches.

The news that JPMorgan was shuttering Finn was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

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