JPMorgan is to open a 'fintech campus' in Silicon valley, housing 1000 employees and rubbing shoulders with Big Tech giants such as Facebook and Google.
Located at Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto, the new innovation hub is set to open in 2020.
The construction of the campus follows JPMorgan's acquisition earlier this year of WePay, which hopes to rival PayPal and Stripe in the digitisation of payments. WePay's 275 employees will be the first to move into the 115,000-square-foot two-story building from its nearby offices in Redwood City.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been pilloried in the past because of his disdain for virtual currency trends, but he is no luddite. The bank has over 50,000 employees working on technology, and is investing heavily in the tech that is transforming the banking industry, including AI, machine learning and cloud-based infrastructures.
Over the past year alone the Wall Street giant has invested in a host of other tech-based firms besides WePay, including Mennlo Security, Bill.com. Mosaic Smart Data and AccessFintech, as well as rolling out its digital-only banking proposition Finn.