JPMorgan Chase spent around $600 million on emerging fintech solutions last year, says the bank's CEO Jamie Dimon in a letter to shareholders which also mentions an API store and some "interesting developments" in the bill payments department.
In his annual letter to shareholders, Dimon says that one of the reasons behind JPMorgan's solid performance is its commitment to technology. The bank spent more than $9.5 billion on tech last year, about $3 billion of which went towards new initiatives.
Of this, $600 million was spent on emerging fintech solutions - which include building and improving digital and mobile services and partnering with fintech companies.
On the bank's own product development, Dimon stresses work towards "end-to-end" digital banking that lets customers open an account and complete the majority of transactions on their phones.
The firm has also been aggressively pursuing partnerships with others, including Roostify for mortgages, TrueCar for auto finance, OnDeck for small business lending and Symphony for communications.
Looking to the future, the letter highlights a Developer Services API store "that offers a direct interfaces with our applications (fully controlled, of course), we are enabling entrepreneurs, partners, fintech companies and clients to build new products or services dedicated to specific needs".
Dimon also teases work on bill payments and business services, writing: "While I can’t reveal much at the moment, suffice it to say there are some interesting developments coming as we integrate our capabilities with those of other companies."
Another area of collaboration with fintech firms is the JPMorgan Chase Financial Solutions Lab, which, in partnership with the Center for Financial Services Innovation to help find the fintech products that help consumers manage their daily finances and meet their long-term goals.
To date, the Lab has helped support more than 18 fintech companies working to improve the financial health of more than a million Americans.
Writes Dimon: "The reasons we invest so much in technology (whether it’s digital, big data or machine learning) are simple: to benefit customers with better, faster and often cheaper products and services, to reduce errors and to make the firm more efficient."