JPMorgan ups hiring for fintech arm in APAC

In response to the surge in digital commerce, JPMorgan Chase is expanding teams that manage card transactions and other commercial payments by hiring personnel in important Asian countries.

According to Max Neukirchen, the company’s global head of payments and commerce solutions, the New York-based lender started offering services under its merchant-acquiring arm this year in Australia, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and New Zealand, with Hong Kong anticipated for the end of 2022.

In an interview, he stated that the bank was aiming to hire “many, many dozens if not more people.”

JPMorgan’s payments division integrates the company’s treasury, trade, card, and merchant services capabilities to enable customers to make payments to anyone, at any time, from anywhere in the world.

Gaining these businesses as clients is becoming more and more appealing to banks and fintech companies alike as e-commerce soars throughout Asia and many small merchants are still waiting to go digital.

According to Neukirchen, India has one of the highest growth potential markets and is “very important” because of its size and the shift from cash to alternative electronic payment methods.

With a developing e-commerce sector, Japan is also a priority for the bank, while Australia gains from widespread credit card use, he added. He went on to say that Singapore and Hong Kong are “critical hubs” for the area.

The bank has a collaboration with a local business in China, where local giants Alipay and WeChat Pay dominate the payments sector.

The world’s second-largest economy, according to Neukirchen, has made it more difficult to obtain licences, but he does not rule out an expansion there at some point in the future.

“Down the road, we might want to expand our footprint in China, but the priority, for now, is on those seven new markets,” he said.