JPMorgan’s UK digital bank app outage locks customers out

Customers of Chase Bank have been unable to access their accounts following a tech outage that shut down its app.

Chase Bank, the UK digital bank launched by JPMorgan Chase last year, is an app-only bank, so the outage left customers unable to log in and access banking services.

The company said in a statement yesterday (5 October): “We are really sorry about the ongoing problem with our service and our teams are working hard to identify and fix it. If you are experiencing errors, please try again in an hour.”

Launched first in the UK, Chase offers retail bank accounts through a digital app and is expanding internationally, beginning in continental Europe. It has about one million customers in the UK.

When it launched the new bank last year, JP Morgan Chase, which is more than two centuries old, said it had recruited 400 people to work at Chase Bank, based in London’s Canary Wharf.

At the time, Sanoke Viswanathan, CEO of the bank’s international consumer growth initiative, said: “We are offering people in the UK the opportunity to experience Chase for the first time with a current account that’s based on simplicity, a fuss-free rewards programme and exceptional customer service.”

Chase offers 1% cashback on everyday spending for the first 12 months, free card use abroad and 5% interest on limited savings. It intends to introduce a broad range of banking products in the future, including new current account features, savings and investment accounts, and lending products.

JPMorgan is not the first US banking giant to launch a digital retail bank in the UK. In 2018, Goldman Sachs launched an online bank in the UK, known as Marcus, which offers savings accounts to consumers, whereas the bank is traditionally focused on institutional investors.