JPMorgan Chase & Co., the multinational financial services firm headquartered in New York City which is the largest bank in the United States and the world’s largest bank by market capitalization, is expanding its activities in Israel and for the first time entering commercial banking for high-tech companies, Calcalist reported Monday.
According to Calcalist, JPMorgan has already recruited ten employees for this purpose, to be led by Daria Fuchs, the former head of corporate development at the WIX software company which does website design and building. JP Morgan has operated in Israel since 2000, mainly in the areas of investment banking, private banking, and wealth management.
The new operation in Israel is part of JPMorgan’s innovation banking division (a.k.a. Innovation Economy) which is designed to handle growth companies, company founders, and the venture capital community.
JPMorgan is following a recent trend: only last week, HSBC announced its entry into Israel with the completion of its purchase of the European branch of Silicon Valley Bank which used to be home for many Israeli hi-tech companies until it collapsed three months ago. Also, about a week ago, the investment management giant Blackrock acquired the Kraus Fund, which is active in Israel in financing high-tech companies.
In keeping with HSBC, JPMorgan recently purchased First Republic Bank (FRB) which collapsed shortly after SVB, enhancing JPMorgan’s presence in Silicon Valley and the global technology sector.
On Sunday, during his cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Netanyahu pointed to Intel’s investment of $25 billion in building a new plant in Kiryat Gat and noted that this flies in the face of everyone who says that Israel’s hi-tech industry is slowing down. He should have included those two other giants, JPMorgan and HSBC among those who predict nothing but growth for Israel’s hi-tech.
