Earlier this month JP Morgan Chase issued a press release stating they are now ‘Connecting 80 Million U.S. Consumers with the Brands They Love’, which is a polite way of saying the major bank is selling customer transaction histories to third parties, chiefly advertisers, for the purpose of targeted ads.
The financial giant created a subsidy, Chase Media Solutions, to generate profits for the bank via selling off customer data on their purchase habits.
“As the only bank-led media platform of its kind, Chase Media Solutions combines the scale and audience of a retail media network with the exclusive advantages of Chase’s first-party financial data, institutional credibility and precise targeting capabilities,” the press release dated April 3 said.
Chase went on to list bullet points on the ‘advantages’ of this program within the press release.
- First-party data: With Chase’s owned transaction data, brands and agencies can precisely target customers at scale based on purchase history (such as targeting new, lapsed or loyal customers)
- Better ROI and attribution: Brands capture incremental spend on everyday purchases both in-store and online with clear attribution for every media dollar spent
- Trust and brand safety: The platform is built on the foundational trust and institutional credibility of Chase, including a verified audience and brand-safe owned channels
While Chase mentions ‘trust’ within one of the bullet points, it is worth noting that the press release is referring to the trust that advertisers can have in the data, not the trust of bank customers have to their bank.
“In 2022, Chase acquired a company called Figg that created the world’s leading card-linked marketing platform. From there, Chase launched Chase Media Solutions in an effort to build out its planned two-sided commerce platform,” Natural News said on the matter.
The bank said that their customers will benefit from the program.
“Chase customers benefit from personalized offers and the ability to earn cash back with brands they love or are discovering for the first time,” the press release said.
Author Jacob M. Thompson gave his commentary on the matter in an article he wrote for The Wine Press.
“We cover this all the time here on The WinePress, but once again, “You’ll own nothing and be happy.” Now, your transaction history is not even sacred and secure: now that is being sold for price so advertisers can incessantly pound you with ads. And this is already on top of the fact that a lot of popular apps, such as Facebook and TikTok, as two glaring examples, are retroactively listening and tracking what users say and do, so the algorithms will curate ads and content based on your search history and what you say out loud in ear shot of the phone or computer,” Jacob M. Thompson wrote for The Wine Press.
