Chase’s new UK credit card won’t offer rewards as bank aims for top five in Europe

JP Morgan Chase’s UK boss has shed more light on reports that it plans to launch a UK credit card, saying it would not be a rewards-orientated credit card, but stopped short of confirming it was launching a card.

Kuba Fast, UK CEO of Chase, the consumer brand of the US banking giant JP Morgan, also said Chase aimed to be a top five bank in other European markets which it is gearing up to launch in.

Asked about plans for Chase to launch a credit card in the UK, to complement its debit and savings accounts, Fast said:

“I can’t comment on that but maybe there are some employees that are doing something around using a different shade of blue when they shop.

“Unsecured lending broadly is for sure an important direction for us.

“We are not looking at a kind of Sapphire-like rewards orientated card, which I know many of our commentators perhaps would expect. 

“Our broad sense is we have met a slice of the rewards-related needs with our debit card offering and cash back on debit card. So for sure the priority for us would be to uniquely focus on the borrowing need.

“If there is a credit card coming anytime soon, that card likely would be a borrowing-orientated credit card rather than a rewards credit card.”

Sapphire is Chase’s upmarket credit card brand in the US.

There have been previous reports that Chase senior executives are testing a UK credit card within their mobile apps.

Elsewhere in the interview, on a podcast with fintech consultancy 11FS, Fast talked about the bank’s ambition across Europe.

He said:

“The ambition for us is yes, we want to have millions of customers across Europe and be across the big markets in Europe and aim for the same thing that we would aim here in the UK, which is become one of the top five institutions in each of the markets we are in.”

Chase launched in the UK in 2021 and has attracted over two million customers and amassed £20 billion in deposits.