At a time when other banks are closing branches, Chase Bank is betting heavily on the Connecticut retail banking market.
Since 2019, the bank has opened 10 locations statewide, according to Chase officials. And by this winter, Chase expects to have added seven additional locations.
Chase’s retail banking focus in Connecticut prior to 2019 was in Fairfield County, with a smattering of New Haven County locations. A Rhode Island-based executive who is in charge of Chase’s branch network expansion, . Ashlee Kelly said the current effort to add new branches “is a matter of expanding into parts of Connecticut where we weren’t before.”
“Chase has always had a commercial and private banking presence across Connecticut, and in terms of a retail presence, we were concentrated in one place,” Kelly said. “In those Connecticut locations where we didn’t have branches, we were really only giving them a piece of the full JPMorgan Chase experience. We view the expansion as a way to remind customers that JPMorgan Chase is here to support them through any portion of their financial journey.”
The current expansion effort includes Shoreline communities like Branford and Madison as well as along the Interstate 91 and Connecticut River Valley corridors.
Chase’s New Haven County presence prior to the current expansion effort included a Boston Post Road location in Milford that opened almost a decade ago and two Elm City branches, one on Amity Road near the border with Woodbridge and the other on Church Street near the New Haven County Courthouse.
Kelly said Chase currently has 52 branch locations, which is the bank’s second largest presence in New England after Massachusetts.
