JPMorgan Chase's Chief Product Officer On Shaping The Future Of Banking: 'Artificial Intelligence Is A Hot Topic'

Published

2 years ago

August 30, 2023

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The banking landscape post-COVID-19 pandemic looks different, with some surveys showing upwards of 90% of consumers prefer managing their money in one place, online. The tech-forward banks are some clear winners in this race, particularly following the financial crises over the last two years.

Benzinga chatted with JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM Chief Product Officer Rohan Amin to learn more. Heres a lightly edited version of the conversation that transpired.

Q: Hello, Rohan! It is nice to meet you. Can you share with me your background?

Amin: I worked in the defense and intelligence community near the [Washington] D.C. metro area for over a decade. It was a fantastic experience that had nothing to do with financial services; instead, I was doing government work in information technology, cybersecurity, and electronic warfare.

In 2014, I received a call from JPMorgan Chase. This opportunity also allowed me to be closer to my family, and I took it. Since joining, Ive had three jobs. I was the Chief Information Security Officer responsible for the banks cybersecurity globally. I was the Chief Information Officer. And now, I am the Chief Product Officer accountable for product development, design, data, and analytics, including our AI and machine learning agendas.

Q: What does your day-to-day look like?

Amin: The best way to describe that is to talk about one of my peers, Gill Haus, the chief Information officer. He took the job I had in terms of running our technology.

Today, Gill and I copilot our customer-facing product development organization. Thats 17,000 product developers, engineers, designersand data and analytics people. We refer to them as the quad. They make up the roughly 100 teams that build all the experiences, such as the process by which customers open an account and our credit monitoring tools free to customers and non-customers. My day-to-day is strategy and working with the teams to birth new customer experiences.

Q: How do you balance innovation with security?

Amin: Job number one is the security and privacy of our customers' data. For example, we were the first bank to move away from screen scraping, not allowing third parties to scrape customer data, and to ensure people are using secure APIs and exposing that to the customer.

In other words, customers can turn things on and off regarding where their data gets shared. All our work on fraud and protecting customers against scams ensuring we have a well-run, well-controlled environment is job one.

Job two is to bring new value to customers, taking inspiration from all forms of competitors, including fintechs.

Most of our inspiration comes from our customers, though. We prefer that we have the best offering or one that best addresses customer needs. Sometimes, we are first, and sometimes we are not. That is fine.

An excellent example is our Chase Pay in 4? offerings, launched as our answer to buy now, pay later. Essentially, debit card customers can split purchases between $50and $400into four installments and pay no fees or interest.

Q: What trends have you observed?

Amin: We did our digital banking survey in 2023, and over 90% of survey respondents said they use the mobile app more than once monthly. We see more customers using mobile versus desktop web browsers. So, mobile adoption continues to rise.

Second, installment lending and digital payments continue to increase, and we have been bringing to market our offerings in those spaces as well.

We have 26 million active users of Zelle, and that number is growing.

Lastly, our personalization and credit monitoring tools, which allow customers and non-customers to get their credit scores and personalized plans for improving their scores, are seeing a lot of interest, particularly from the millennial generation.

Q: How are those trends, among other factors, influencing your product roadmap?

Amin: There are several factors that we respond to in real time. For instance, we had the pandemic, during which we had to pivot all of our plans to help small businesses pay their bills, employeesand other things they had to do.

Sometimes, macro situations may drive our roadmap. In other cases, its those trends we just talked about, including installment and point-of-sale lending. When we observe customers who want to use those payment solutions, we'll build in response to that.

We obsess over feedback, listening to calls, or reading input verbatim in our app. All those wants and needs get added to our product backlog. Our managers will synthesize all the feedback and set objectives that we will work into our apps, which are updated every two weeks.

Q: Say you have a customer thats experiencing an issue. How does their feedback flow to you or your teams? How quickly are those issues then resolved?

Amin: We have dashboards that retrieve customer feedback from places like the Apple App Store within minutes. Well mine that data to understand what the issues are.

Weve gotten so good at recognizing and addressing issues that if youre having a problem and you call, our automated interactive voice response (IVR) system will change the menu options to surface the thing you want. So, if we think you're having trouble with a payment, the first thing you'll hear when you call is making a payment.

Q: What excites you most as we head toward year-end and 2024?

Amin: Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are hot topics. Were careful to explore, integrateand use these technologies to enhance our customer-facing products and services and some of our back-office operations. Fundamentally, AI and machine learning help us personalize the content surfacing to you so that your online and physical interactions at our branches, which 60% of customers use, are holistic and pleasant.

Photo: Tim Samuel via Pexels

UK

UK looking at Denmark model to cut illegal migration

Published

1 hour ago

November 8, 2025

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UK looking at Denmark model to cut illegal migration

The Home Office is looking at what Denmark is doing to cut illegal migration, Sky News understands.

Last month, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood dispatched officials to the Nordic nation to study its border control and asylum policies, which are considered some of the toughest in Europe.

In particular, officials are understood to be looking at Denmark’s tighter rules on family reunion and restricting most refugees to a temporary stay in the country.

Ms Mahmood will announce a major shake-up of the UK’s immigration system later this month, PA is reporting.

Labour MPs are said to be split on the move.

Some, in so-called Red Wall seats which are seen as vulnerable to challenge from Reform UK, want ministers to go further in the direction Denmark has taken.

But others believe the policies will estrange progressive voters and push the Labour Party too far to the right.

What are Denmark’s migration rules?

Denmark has adopted increasingly restrictive rules in order to deal with migration over the last few years.

In Denmark, most asylum or refugee statuses are temporary. Residency can be revoked once a country is deemed safe.

In order to achieve settlement, asylum seekers are required to be in full-time employment, and the length of time it takes to acquire those rights has been extended.

Denmark also has tougher rules on family reunification – both the sponsor and their partner are required to be at least 24 years old, which the Danish government says is designed to prevent forced marriages.

The sponsor must also not have claimed welfare for three years and must provide a financial guarantee for their partner. Both must also pass a Danish language test.

In 2018, Denmark introduced what it called a ghetto package, a controversial plan to radically alter some residential areas, including by demolishing social housing. Areas with over 1,000 residents were defined as ghettos if more than 50% were “immigrants and their descendants from non-Western countries”.

In 2021, the left of centre government passed a law that allowed refugees arriving on Danish soil to be moved to asylum centres in a partner country – and subsequently agreed with Rwanda to explore setting up a program, although that has been put on hold.

It comes as the government continues to struggle to get immigration under control, with rising numbers of small boat crossings in the Channel over the last few months and a migrant, deported under the UK’s returns deal with France, re-entering the country.

Some 648 people crossed the Channel to Britain in nine boats on Friday, according to Home Office figures, bringing the total for the year to 38,223.

Ms Mahmood wants deterrents in place to stop migrants seeking to enter the country via unauthorised routes.

She also wants to make it easier to remove those who are found to have no right to stay in the UK.

Sources told the PA news agency she was eager to meet her Danish counterpart, Rasmus Stoklund, the country’s immigration minister, at the earliest possible convenience.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Mr Stoklund likened Danish society to “the hobbits in The Lord Of The Rings” and said people coming to the country who do not contribute positively would not be welcome.

Mr Stoklund said: “We are a small country. We live peacefully and quietly with each other. I guess you could compare us to the hobbits in The Lord Of The Rings.”

“We expect people who come here to participate and contribute positively, and if they don’t they aren’t welcome.”

The split in Labour was apparent from public comments by MPs today.

Stoke-on-Trent Central Labour MP Gareth Snell told Radio 4’s Today programme that any change bringing “fairness” to an asylum system that his constituents “don’t trust” was “worth exploring”.

But Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome, who is a member of the party’s Socialist Campaign Group caucus, said: “I think these are policies of the far right. I don’t think anyone wants to see a Labour government flirting with them.”

Sports

Poll: Mendoza top vote-getter as NFL draft’s QB1

Published

2 hours ago

November 8, 2025

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Poll: Mendoza top vote-getter as NFL draft's QB1

The volatility and unpredictability of the 2025 college football season has rippled through the group of draft-eligible quarterbacks.

ESPN repolled 25 NFL scouts and executives about who will be the first quarterback taken in the 2026 NFL draft, with the results drastically different from six weeks ago.

In the latest poll, Indiana‘s Fernando Mendoza was the top vote-getter with 13 votes, putting him ahead of Oregon‘s Dante Moore (6) and Alabama‘s Ty Simpson (3). Notably, none of those quarterbacks received a vote in the first poll, and all have eligibility remaining.

The other three quarterbacks receiving votes were Oklahoma‘s John Mateer (1), Cincinnati‘s Brendan Sorsby (1) and South Carolina‘s LaNorris Sellers (1). Only Sellers and Mateer had votes in the first poll.

“It’s not a stellar class,” one scout told ESPN. “If you add the maybes [who have eligibility and could leave school], now it gets interesting. The top is better than last year’s class, for sure.”

The top of this year’s crop has flipped from Sept. 20, when seven different quarterbacks received votes, with Sellers (8) edging out LSU‘s Garrett Nussmeier (7). Both players and their teams have struggled this season. Others receiving votes in the first QB1 poll were Miami‘s Carson Beck (3), Mateer (3), Penn State‘s Drew Allar (2), Arizona State‘s Sam Leavitt (1) and Texas‘ Arch Manning (1).

The sentiment regarding the class has soured a bit since the initial polling. Along with the dip in play from Sellers and Nussmeier, Allar suffered a season-ending injury and Manning hasn’t resembled anything close to what his family and recruiting pedigrees projected.

While Mendoza is the top vote-getter, he has yet to establish himself as a no-brainer No. 1 overall pick. He is trending that way, but there is not yet conviction behind those projections.

Mendoza transferred from Cal and has taken a leap under coach Curt Cignetti and the tutelage of offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan and quarterbacks coach Chandler Whitmer. His completion percentage is 72.3%, up from 68.7%, and he has thrown 25 touchdowns, nine more than last season at Cal. He has also rushed for four touchdowns and is averaging 9.5 yards per attempt, up from 7.8.

What do scouts like? They start with the basics of him being 6-foot-5 and 225 pounds. He idolizes Tom Brady, which is viewed as a strong North Star for a prospect.

“He has ‘wow’ throws and playmaking passer ability,” one scout told ESPN. “He can anticipate post-snap.”

Added another: “He’s decisive, and he sees everything well. He’s got accuracy down the field and is very tough in the pocket.”

There was a play against Iowa where Mendoza hung in the pocket and got decked by a Hawkeyes linebacker while delivering a perfect ball to a receiver in tight coverage.

Moore’s emergence has been sudden. He has started 13 games, including five at UCLA in 2023 before backing up Dillon Gabriel at Oregon last season. A redshirt sophomore who entered college as ESPN’s No. 2 overall player, Moore is 6-3 and 206 pounds. He attempted just eight passes last season but has maximized his starting role in 2025, with 19 touchdowns, a 71.4% completion percentage and 1,772 passing yards.

Simpson didn’t start a game until this season, which has led to speculation in NFL circles that he will return to college. (Quarterbacks with under 25 starts don’t have a consistent track record of NFL success.) Simpson has soared onto radars with 20 touchdowns and just one interception. He has completed 67.8% of his passes and thrown for 2,184 yards.

Sorsby might be the biggest surprise. While he struggled in high-wattage spots against Nebraska and Utah, he has clearly progressed.

One scout summed him up this way: “He’s big, tough, athletic and smart. He’s a leader and can make off-schedule plays and change arm angles. He’s got the ‘It.’ I think he’s very gifted.”