Chase Redesigns Online Banking Site, Following Rivals

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has joined a growing list of retail banks to take a less-is-more approach in redesigning their online banking sites.

The largest U.S. bank by assets bank unveiled a new look for Chase.com this week. In refining the navigation, JPMorgan Chase eliminated long pages that were filled with dense information and lists of links, says Ravi Acharya, the bank's head of digital products for consumer banking.

"The new site is much cleaner," Acharya says. "We made it cleaner to [help] people find what they want to find."

Using clearer language and reducing the amount of text displayed was a goal of the redesign. To that end, above the greatly enlarged login area for customers and visitors there is now a tab labeled "Why Chase?" Hovering over the tab produces a dropdown box listing reasons to bank with Chase, such as its large ATM and branch networks.

Jim Bruene, the author and publisher of the Online Banking Report and Netbanker, mostly applauded the bank's redesign efforts on his blog Monday. "Chase has moved past trying to be all things to all people on the homepage. That's huge, and I hope it becomes a trend," he wrote.

Citibank, Bank of America Corp, TD Bank and BBVA Compass have also redesigned their websites within the last 12 months or so. Like the one at Chase, those earlier redesigns purged banker jargon and added white space.

Chase's update is one of many ways in which Acharya says it is working to simplify banking for customers in all channels.

"Our customers are using digital channels, but they are also using offline channels," he says. "Our goal is to provide customers more options across channels."

Earlier this month, Chase launched a Spanish-language website for consumer and business customers.