The nation’s largest bank is expanding its brick-and-mortar presence in Iowa, it announced Monday with an event that brought its high-profile chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, to Des Moines.

JPMorganChase, with more than $3 trillion in assets, is announcing plans to open 25 new branches in Iowa by 2030 and creating about 150 new jobs. Dimon marked the start of the expansion by cutting the ribbon on the latest Iowa branch to open, a newly constructed building at 3101 Ingersoll Ave.

Accompanying Dimon, Jennifer Roberts, CEO of Chase Consumer Banking, said in an interview with the Des Moines Register that the bank’s decision to expand in Iowa is continuation of its announcement, made in 2018, to build 400 new branches and have operations in all states except Alaska and Hawaii,

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Roberts said Chase decides where to build by comparing its share of a market’s deposits to its share of branch locations there.

“So we have a very low single-digit branch share in many of these new states that we went in starting in 2018 and we know we need to increase that to really get the full effect of our investment,” she said. “And so this is really just an ongoing effort from that journey starting in 2018 to continue to expand and get to that optimal size.”

Chase consumer banking head says Iowa attractive because of ‘diversity’

The new branch on Ingersoll is Chase’s sixth to open in the Des Moines metro in the past three years and its plans call for additional branches in Des Moines, Waterloo Cedar Rapids, Sioux City and Ames in the next five years.

Even in a world of increased digital capabilities, Roberts said, customers are still looking for human interaction.

“We really view our branch locations as advice centers in many ways, our ability to really connect with customers of all different needs and our experiences,” she said. “Our experience is that in complex situations people want people and they want to have a human connection and an interaction.

“We know that the majority of our accounts, in particular… with young people get opened in a physical branch, not online, which may be different than what you would expect, because obviously young people do everything online,” Roberts added.

She said one of the attributes Iowa has that is attractive to Chase is its diversity, “Maybe not necessarily what people typically think of diversity, but it’s got a vibrant university community, agriculture and farming, obviously manufacturing and small business is a big part of the economy.”

“In Iowa, and as we really strive to be what we call the bank for all, we want to make sure we’re serving customers at all ends of the affluent spectrum and all types of small businesses, regardless of what industry they’re in in Iowa, I think is a great microcosm of our ability to do that and deliver on that,” she said.

Expansion in Iowa fits Chase’s overall goal, announced in May, of having branches located within accessible drive time of 50% of all U.S. residents, Roberts said.

Community bank chief calls Chase expansion ‘a good sign for Iowa’

Iowa already is a highly competitive when it comes to banking, with 240 state-chartered banks and roughly 1,400 bank offices scattered around the state, said John Sorensen, president and CEO of the Iowa Bankers Association.

Sorensen said Iowa’s large number of banks — it ranks in the top four nationally and near the top on a per-capita basis — is due to its agricultural heritage.

“We have a number of community institutions here, especially in rural Iowa, serving those rural communities very well. My sense with Chase is they’re going to be looking at markets that make sense for them,” he said, adding that metro markets have become highly competitive in Iowa and are where Chase likely will seek to establish its niche.

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“It requires any financial institution that enters the market to understand that market well, to understand where they can fit and you know try and try and provide a better mousetrap,” Sorensen said.

Despite the competition, Greg Post, president and CEO of Spencer-based Northwest Bank, said sees Chase’s increased presence in Iowa as a good thing.

“I’m thrilled they (Chase) see Iowa as a place they can continue to grow and prosper. I think that’s a good sign for Iowa and it’s a good sign for Iowa community banks that the Midwest has been extremely strong over the last decade, even through the COVID years,” Post said.

He said huge banks like Chase have brought important technology to the industry, but community banks like his will continue to thrive in Iowa.

“The larger mega banks, they have different business models obviously and are trying to play up to their investors,” he said. “I think the challenge facing the banking industry today is not to bump off or move out locally based competition to benefit mega banks, but how do we maintain a diverse and decentralized system to ensure continued access to the financial service for all Iowans and people across the country?”

Dimon, informed of Post’s welcoming attitude, said banks like Northwest can also be Chase customers, with the larger bank providing them loans and helping them with services tailored to customers who have foreign markets and clients.

“We can bank them (customers) outside this country. We’ve got special digital services that secure their payments etcetera and we can move money in 120 different currencies.. We can do a lot of things other people can’t do. If you look at the financial ecosystem, you know, we bank a company like Boeing in 30 countries. You can’t be a small bank and do that,” Dimon said.

Offiering the same kind of international reach, Chase currently serves about 20,000 small businesses in Iowa and Dimon thinks the number will grow to 40,000 to 50,000.

“When we come here, we can also help them sell their product in India and Asia and Mexico,” he said. “We are everywhere. So they say to us they want to learn about what they can do in Brazil, we teach them. We can open a bank account in Brazil for them and help them sell into Brazil.”

Kevin Baskins covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at kbaskins@registermedia.com.

Iowa has plans to use American Rescue Plan money to pay $5 million for victim services.

The move is in response to a cut in the federal government’s 40% cut to the Victims of Crime Act earlier in the year. Concerns are that employees could be laid off from nonprofit organizations and cuts in services, including medical and mental health care, temporary housing and courtroom advocacy, could occur. Those cuts would have started in October, and there is a bipartisan push from attorneys general across the country asking the federal government to reverse course.

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CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – With both Mercy Medical Center and Unity Point Health – St. Luke’s in downtown Cedar Rapids, it can be a struggle for anyone outside the metro area to access emergency medical care.

But both hospitals are looking to change this.

”If you live in Marion, sometimes it’s 25 minutes to get downtown, so we’re bringing in emergency care closer to their homes.” said Mercy Medical Center Director Dr. Matthew Aucutt.

In August of 2020, Mercy Cedar Rapids opened Iowa’s first free-standing emergency room in Hiawatha.

Now, they’re building another one in Marion.

One physician says these centers help meet a growing demand at their main campuses.

“In our population, people are getting sicker and sicker. The baby boomer generation is getting older and have more emergent medical problems. And so, we’re going to see increased ER volumes across the country over time.” said Aucutt.

Both locations will function identically to an ER, but they can’t admit anyone.

But the cost of transporting patients to the hospital for admission is covered by the hospital.

Doctor Aucutt says he hopes this will be the go-to resource for people who need more than urgent care and don’t want to travel downtown.

“With a sicker population, urgent care just doesn’t meet the needs of those patients. And urgent cares aren’t open 24/7.. We can take care of them and provide the care that they need so they don’t need to get admitted.” he explained.

Though, a study out of Texas, which has 266 free-standing emergency rooms, shows that patients struggle to determine whether urgent care or free-standing E-Rs would meet their needs better.

This can often lead to patients paying more for emergency care when they could have gotten the same care for cheaper at an urgent care.

But Aucutt says most patients know where to go.

“Patients have learned over time in our community what level of service they can get at urgent care versus the emergency departments, and that’s up to them.” he said.

But with only 2 open free-standing ERs (and two more on the way), it’s unclear whether patients will actually understand which centers offer which services… and if their wallets will suffer because of it.

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