‘It was pure accident’: how Chase UK’s boss went from communist Poland to Wall Avenue banking … by way of linguistics | Banking

It all began in spring 2019, in a secret workplace on the seventh flooring of JP Morgan’s London headquarters in Canary Wharf. Tucked behind the bustling workers canteen, on the finish of a hall that snaked previous the workplace gymnasium and in-house physician, future Chase UK chief government Kuba Quick was digesting the duty forward of him: serving to construct a brand new digital financial institution – from scratch – for the Wall Avenue large.

He had been chosen to affix the challenge months earlier by fellow McKinsey alumnus Sanoke Viswanathan, who had been travelling the globe to be taught from different profitable digital lenders, together with Quick’s former employer, Poland’s mBank. JP Morgan gave little element about its enterprise, which was then identified by its codename, Venture Dynamo. However Quick dived headfirst into the blank-slate challenge. “I agreed to affix earlier than figuring out the place I might stay,” Quick says.

Six years later, he’s chief government of Chase UK, which holds £20bn in property, providing present accounts and financial savings, and most lately bank cards, to 2.5 million clients.

And whereas the financial institution continues to be working at a loss for its Wall Avenue dad or mum, Quick confirms it’s aiming to interrupt even for the primary time in 2025, serving to lay the groundwork for growth into mainland Europe. “In 2025 we wish the UK enterprise … to become profitable and begin contributing in direction of defraying the fee, the funding, that we’re placing into world platform applied sciences,” Quick says.

JP Morgan has lengthy toyed with the thought of increasing its Chase model, which is without doubt one of the largest shopper banks within the US, serving practically half of American households by on-line banking and 4,700 branches. Though bosses have been initially delay by the prospect of pricey department networks, the rising recognition of on-line banks corresponding to Monzo, Starling and Revolut – which burst on to the scene round 2015 – provided a window of alternative. In 2021, JP Morgan turned the second main US lender to enter the UK retail banking market, following Goldman Sachs, which began providing its Marcus digital financial savings accounts in 2018.

It has been a whirlwind for Quick, who had been aiming for a lifelong profession in academia and linguistics earlier than ending up in enterprise by “pure accident”. “Rising up, I considered myself as a person of the letters, not a person of the numbers”, he says. Quick was born in 1980 in Sosnowiec, Poland – a rustic whose communist regime was quickly to crumble. “I nonetheless have a really vivid recollection of these instances, like provide shortages, folks standing in strains for hours and hours to purchase a washer or meat. Or happening sign-up lists to probably get a automobile 5 years down the street.”

So when communism fell, a buzzing sense of optimism and alternative pulled him overseas. That included Brazil – the place his father had organized for an off-the-cuff pupil alternate – and later to the west coast of Canada, the place he studied for his worldwide baccalaureate earlier than returning to Poland for college.

He was fascinated by sociology, and the sort of computational linguistics fuelling the AI fashions which are actually within the technique of shaking up each business. However after deferring his PhD programme, he discovered himself working for McKinsey, the influential consultancy agency often called the “CEO manufacturing facility” for churning out a number of the largest names in enterprise and politics.

“It was nearly like being forcibly extracted from a nook within the library,” he recollects. There, he helped banks rebuild their operations after the blows of the 2007-08 disaster. And simply as he made accomplice, he was poached by mBank, the place he led the worldwide retail division, earlier than being pulled away to work for Chase UK.

His rise at Chase UK was accelerated by the departure of his former boss. However Quick insists he’s serving Chase’s preliminary mission: “We wish to be in a number of nations. And in every of those nations, we wish to be a outstanding presence: high 5.”

Quick admits the financial institution is “not shut” to reaching that time within the UK. However JP Morgan is so assured in its ambitions that in Might 2024, it hoisted the Chase brand on high of its UK headquarters at 25 Financial institution Avenue in Canary Wharf.

Pending rules may increase its profile additional. With £20bn in property, it’s edging nearer to the £25bn threshold at which it might be pressured to separate shopper deposits from the remainder of its funding banking operations. Nonetheless, so-called ring-fencing guidelines being proposed by the Treasury are on account of increase that threshold to £35bn.

The present thresholds have been a barrier to development for its Goldman-backed rival Marcus, which briefly closed to new enterprise in 2020 to keep away from hitting the brink. Whereas Quick says that has not but been the case for Chase UK, the modifications come at an opportune time. “That’s completely very important for us … it permits us to develop.”

As for the affect of the incoming Trump administration, Quick says Chase UK – like its dad or mum financial institution – is braced for any potential volatility. “[JP Morgan chief executive] Jamie Dimon says that the financial and political cycle is just like the climate. It’s essential to be ready for it, proper? For those who don’t have an umbrella, you’re in bother. And we run our enterprise in a means that we’ve got the umbrella.”

CV

Age 44
Household Spouse (Karolina Lewestam, a author); three youngsters (16, 10 and 6); three cats.
Schooling United World Faculty of the Pacific (Canada), College of Warsaw (MA, sociology), Harvard Enterprise Faculty (MBA).
Pay Undisclosed.
Final vacation Metropolis break in Madrid.
Greatest recommendation he’s been given “For those who’re not completely happy together with your job, change the way you behave and your setting. If it really works, downside solved. For those who go too far, chances are you’ll get fired, however you didn’t just like the job anyway, so is that actually that unhealthy?”
Greatest profession mistake “With hindsight, I may have taken extra dangers earlier in my profession.”
Phrase he overuses “Superb.”
How he relaxes Crash programs in area of interest hobbies – “considered one of my latest ones was watchmaking”.