JPMorgan Set For Global Corporate Banking Push

Good news for bankers with a hankering to live overseas: JPMorgan Chase is creating a new global corporate banking unit and will hire 300 bankers to staff it.

Bankers looking to work in global hotspots like Brazil, China and India are in luck, as are those willing to relocate from the U.S. to Europe's economic centers: the UK, Switzerland and Germany. That's where JPMorgan will first concentrate its new unit's efforts, although the bank intends, long-term, to have a complete global presence.

JPMorgan will sink more than $100 million into its new unit, which will go head-to-head with Citigroup and HSBC by lending to and providing commercial banking services to multi-national corporations, according to the Financial Times.

The unit will be based in London and will be run by Greg Guyett, currently JPMorgan's top official in Japan. Guyett told the FT his unit will first focus on using JPMorgan's balance sheet to lend to international clients. The hope is that lending will lead to greater international banking business, such as cash management services and commodities trading.

While the U.S. market currently represents about 75 percent of JPMorgan revenues, the bank wants a larger piece of the international pie. It's creating the new unit partly because executives believe the U.S. economy could be stagnant for at least another year. The bank also sees an opportunity to seize market share from weakened global giants like Citigroup.

"We are doing this now for a couple of reasons...to balance our growth and increase the portion of our revenues that comes from outside the U.S. and from emerging markets in particular; and because, after the crisis, a number of our competitors are challenged," Guyett told the FT.