JPMorgan’s tech offices take page from Google

More-relaxed atmosphere allows jeans, Foosball, Xbox

As more banking activities move online, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is shedding its pinstriped suits and stodgy offices in a bid to win over coders and engineers.

JPMorgan, the nation’s largest bank by assets, opened a digital hub in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards neighborhood in December to house 700 tech workers. Unlike its more traditional Park Avenue headquarters, the digital team is allowed to wear jeans, ride around the office on scooters and play Foosball and Xbox at work.

If that sounds a lot like tech giant Google, it’s because it is. Executives with the digital team talked to executives at Google, Amazon and other tech companies about how to best design the space to spur innovation, said James Young, the chief information officer for the bank’s digital unit.

What they came up with was three football fields of open-floor space that is designed to encourage casual meetings and brainstorming sessions.

“There are more seats away from desks than at desks,” Young said. “We don’t want people spending their day looking at email,” he said.

For Mario Pedernera, a program manager, the new space has given way to “democracy with a lowercase ‘d.’ ” It encourages workers “fresh out of college” to share ideas with the team’s top executives at open-space meetings, he said.

The move highlights the emphasis the bank is putting on online and mobile banking, including plans later this year for Chase Pay, a digital payment system that will compete with Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay.

Like its Silicon Valley competitors, Chase Pay will let people use their phones to pay for things in stores and restaurants.

Thursday, Chase launched a redesign of its retail banking website, chase.com, as part of its ongoing effort to service and encourage the move away from bank branches.