JPMorgan buys investment platform Nutmeg in UK retail push By Reuters

By Iain Withers and Anna Irrera

LONDON (Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase has bought British digital wealth manager Nutmeg, as part of the U.S. giant’s expansion into the UK retail banking and investment market.

Nutmeg – which has more than 140,000 clients and over 3.5 billion pounds ($4.89 billion) of assets under management – will form the basis of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:)’s retail digital wealth management offering internationally, Nutmeg said in a statement.

Nutmeg launched in 2012 and offers a range of investment and pensions products, but has struggled to turn a profit. In its most recent set of full accounts for 2019, the firm posted a pretax loss of 22 million pounds.

Nutmeg is Britain’s best known robo-advisor, offering automated financial planning services with the aim of under-cutting traditional wealth managers.

JPMorgan confirmed the acquisition and said it would complement the firm’s UK digital bank launch under its Chase brand later this year.

The bank is looking to take on established British high street rivals and a growing band of fintechs with plans to become a full-service retail bank, starting by offering current accounts.

“We are building Chase in the UK from scratch using the very latest technology and putting the customer’s experience at the heart of our offering, principles that Nutmeg shares with us,” said Sanoke Viswanathan, CEO of international consumer at JPMorgan Chase.

JPMorgan had already launched a product partnership with Nutmeg in November.

The acquisition comes as rival U.S. bank Goldman Sachs (NYSE:) group Inc pivots the focus of its Marcus consumer division in Britain to wealth and investments. The bank told Reuters last month that it plans to offer a robo-advisor to Marcus clients in the country by the first quarter of next year.

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