As JPMorgan Chase Targets $1 Trillion In Assets, It Beefs Up Its Mobile App With Bond Trading Features

For years JPMorgan Chase lagged digital brokerages, but executives now insist the bank has become a force in self‑directed investing.
On Friday the giant lender will introduce features that let customers research and purchase individual bonds and brokered certificates of deposit directly inside its mobile app, executives.

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Investors will create custom screens, compare yields, and place orders through the same interface used for everyday banking. Paul Vienick, head of online investing at JPMorgan Wealth Management, said the team borrowed the “one‑tap” feel of stock and ETF trading and applied it to fixed income.
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Despite the bank’s dominance across most areas of finance, its retail brokerage is small beside online stalwarts such as Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and E‑Trade.
Even after recent growth, total client assets only just passed the $100 billion mark.
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The first push to capture do‑it‑yourself traders came in 2018 with a zero‑commission service branded “You Invest,” but adoption lagged and the product was re‑labeled Self‑Directed Investing in 2021.
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That year, CEO Jamie Dimon bluntly told analysts the offering still “wasn’t very good” and vowed upgrades. Vienick, a veteran of TD Ameritrade and Morgan Stanley, was hired months later to close the gap. “There was broad recognition that our wealth unit needed to catch up,” he recalled in an interview at the bank’s midtown headquarters.
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The broader plan also includes adding more advisers for affluent households, an effort boosted by last year’s acquisition of First Republic. JPMorgan says it already banks half of the country’s 19 million affluent families but oversees only about 10 percent of their investable dollars. Good digital tools are now table stakes: roughly half of clients who work with a human adviser also trade online, Vienick noted.
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The next target segment is “engaged” investors—people who place a handful of equity trades each month and prefer to own bonds outright rather than through a mutual fund. To attract them the bank is offering cash bonuses of up to $700 for fresh deposits and is building after‑hours equity trading for launch later this year.
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Executives argue that combining banking and brokerage delivers a clear advantage: users can view cash, loans, cards, and investments on one dashboard and move money instantly among accounts. Vienick believes that edge, plus JPMorgan’s branch network and brand under Dimon, can eventually lift the platform to a trillion dollars in assets, though he admits it will take hard work.
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The new bond experience is central to that ambition. Clients will browse thousands of corporate, municipal, and Treasury issues, filter by maturity, credit rating, and yield, and execute orders without paperwork once required for fixed‑income trades.
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Brokered CDs, which allow savers to lock in rates at other banks while retaining FDIC insurance, will appear alongside traditional securities.
The timing could resonate: Treasury yields sit near multi‑year highs and CDs pay well above typical checking accounts.
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Retail demand for fixed‑income products has ballooned since the Federal Reserve began hiking rates in 2022, prompting savers to hunt for better returns outside low‑yield sweep accounts.
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Price alerts, watchlists, and educational pop‑ups will accompany the launch, aiming to guide novices without overwhelming them.
Analysts say democratizing bond access aligns with a broader industry shift accelerated by zero‑commission trading and pandemic‑era mobile enthusiasm.
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While some rivals are focused on defending share after the speculative boom cooled, JPMorgan hopes to convert existing checking customers into long‑term investors.
Vienick stressed that the app will emphasize education rather than gamified prompts, presenting clear explanations of credit risk and where each bond sits in the issuer’s capital structure.
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Skeptics wonder if a universal bank can iterate as quickly as digital‑first brokers, but Dimon has shown a willingness to commit billions to technology and talent.
If those investments pay off, JPMorgan could eventually match the scale of traditional brokerage giants while leveraging synergies unique to an integrated banking model.
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For clients that could mean a single cockpit where paying a card bill and building a bond ladder happen in the same session.
Whether that vision hits the trillion‑dollar mark will hinge on execution, market conditions, and the evolving habits of tech‑savvy investors.
Friday’s rollout is the firm’s clearest signal yet that it intends to play offense in online investing.

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