Ask HN: What makes JPMC Bank so good?
I know there is no love lost from the typical HN member for mega corps. Yet, as a customer of JPMC, they are one of the few mega-corps I deal with in my daily life that has consistently provided top notch service down through the years.
A rep on campus convinced me, as an international student then, to open the account about 15 years ago, and I have never regretted it, for the following reasons:
- I returned to my home country years ago, and never once have I felt the lack of any local branches; They have also not suddenly become suspicious of me, asking me to re-verify, nor have they ever blocked me simply because of being in Ghana, as other international companies are wont to do. (1)
- Their online and mobile banking is top-notch, and has never let me down. No weird glitches, no broken functionality, no security theater that does not make sense, no inexplicable card blocks, no dark patterns. Their app enables me to do literally anything involving international banking with a minimum of fuss. When compared to the shit-show that is most online banking and fin-tech, this is a big deal for me.
- I see they were not part of the banking scandal of some years back. I'm not naive that there is any really big business that does not behave un-ethically, but it appears they are far from the worst in that request.
Now, I understand they are the biggest bank in the world, which makes their consistently good service all the more surprising. To me they are a case study in how to run an international mega business. I wonder what contributes to their success? Any thoughts?
1. For example, beginning about 5 years ago, suddenly I was unable to use any credit cards to shop on most major retailer websites (e.g., Walmart, Best Buy, even Apple). I have no idea what could be wrong, other than that I reside in West Africa. As a result, my online shopping is confined to Amazon (thank you) and eBay. PayPal also suddenly has asked me to re-verify my account by sending them my ID, so unless I can get that sorted out, I might not be able to use eBay any longer soon. I also know of people who are unable to use their accounts with Goldman Sachs, BoA, etc. in Ghana whenever they visit.