Dimon to Bank of America: We’re Coming for You in Branch-Expansion Battle

(Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has a message for his biggest rival: We’re coming for you.

JPMorgan and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. both have plans to increase their national footprints by adding at least 400 branches in new and existing markets over the next few years -- with each opening 90 new retail locations in 2019. That’s put the two banks in direct competition for cheap consumer deposits in some of the fastest-growing U.S. cities.

“We’re going right at Bank of America, folks, in Charlotte, their hometown,” Dimon said to cheers and laughter at a branch opening in midtown Manhattan, a block away from his company’s headquarters. JPMorgan is adding branches in 20 cities where it previously lacked a presence, including Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and Minneapolis. “We’ve been waiting a long time to start the expansion of Chase retail.”

Bank of America, for its part, isn’t worried.

“We welcome all good competitors,” a company spokesman said in an email. “It makes us even better.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Michelle F. Davis in New York at mdavis194@bloomberg.net;Lananh Nguyen in New York at lnguyen35@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Daniel Taub, Steve Dickson

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