Chase opens its latest local bank branch in west Charlotte

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte City Councilman Malcolm Graham stood at a podium this week inside a packed tent at the corner of Beatties Ford Road and LaSalle Street as a crowd of 100 people tried to shake off a cold, rainy day.

Graham, a Democrat, represents a district that includes the Historic West End, where the group gathered to celebrate the opening of a JPMorgan Chase & Co. branch. Referring to what happened down the street on Nov. 1 — when Johnson C. Smith University received a commitment for $80 million in corporate gifts to boost the historically black college’s academic standing — Graham insisted that the sun was, and is, shining bright.

“We’ve been having an amazing week on Beatties Ford Road,” Graham said. “… This is community-building at its best. We are all doing this together.”

Jennifer Roberts, CEO of Chase Consumer Banking, said of the new branch, “This one is special, for sure. We want to be here to serve this community, in particular, and to provide financial-health services and have folks feel like this is the bank for them that they can do business with, and it can help lift them up.”

From redlining to a lack of financing, Black neighborhoods and businesses have suffered from banking disparities for decades. That explains, in part, why speakers delivered impassioned remarks about the importance of Chase’s arrival.

The 3,200-square-foot Chase branch is the New York bank’s 13th in Charlotte. Its first branch locally opened in March 2020.

Read the full story here. 

(WATCH BELOW: Fifth Third Bank investing $20 million in Historic West End)

Fifth Third Bank investing $20 million in Historic West End

©2021 Cox Media Group