Traditional Brokerage Business Under Attack: JP Morgan Takes the Spotlight with You Invest
A couple of days ago numerous news outlets, including CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, and CNN, reported that JP Morgan Chase is launching a new kind of DIY investing service model next week that will be embedded as a part of the current Chase Mobile banking app and online banking service – an entirely new digital trading platform to acquire more investors and their assets (back) to JP Morgan. Releasing new functionalities and improvements for existing banking apps is not anything new, but JP Morgan’s announcement came with an incredible twist. JP Morgan Chase chose to tackle the traditional discount brokers and new zero-commission brokers heads on with a new kind of bundled trading offering under their new You Invest investment management service line: free or discounted trades (i.e., a kind of price band model that is ultimately dependent on your loyalty/service level) 1)“Clients can get 100 free trades every year if they maintain an account…
What’s Going on in the Social Trading and Investing Space?
As I explained in my earlier article, social investing is not a totally new idea as seeking for help, advice, and tips have been part of investing as long as people could invest money. The ongoing trend of democratizing investing and banking for the masses is closely tied to the rise of fintechs (e.g., robo-advisory), newly emerged business models, the ever-wider distribution of new financial products, and the trust gap created by the recent global financial crisis. Also, as Dan Schutzer highlights, there are new ways to effectively fund new ventures, incumbents are still struggling with various environmental changes and credit is tight, technology-assisted solutions are everywhere, and our means utilizing and accessing information are changing. Social trading and social investing represent the new trend of technology-assisted, socially-driven, and DIY models of investing. We also have some concrete evidence on the effects of social media on retail and institutional investor behavior and trading activity as well as…