COLUMBUS, Ohio - Inside the low-slung, nondescript beige building on the edge of an industrial parking lot here, JPMorgan Chase executives are conducting a vast experiment to construct bank branches of the future â€" complete with cash machines unlocked by palm and iris scanners instead of debit cards. They hope the new branches will fundamentally upend Americans’ relationship with banking.
At the lab, which is where JPMorgan has an expansive footprint because of its two-million-square-foot retail banking headquarters, employees are trying to harness the latest technologies to reimagine the bank branch from the stodgy, teller-oriented banks with huge vaults to nimbler structures. The aim, in part, is to offer more services for customers in far less space.
The effort has gained urgency across the industry as a growing number of customers use mobile technologies to conduct many traditional banking functions, like check deposits and paying bills, without ever stepping into a branch. Either the bank branches adapt or they go the way of video stores.
“Customers are not abandoning the branches, but they are looking for different things when they come in,†William Sheley, Chase’s head of branch and A.T.M. innovation, said in a recent interview. And to do that takes sizable investment, noted Barry Sommers, the chief executive of Chase’s Consumer Bank. “We’re investing in significant resources to find ways to improve our branch model as our customer behaviors change,†he said last month during a visit to a redesigned branch in New York.
JPMorgan is not the only institution trying to reimagine the traditional bank branch with its long rows of tellers standing behind glass like cashiers at a racetrack. Across Wall Street, banks are looking to slash expenses and wring more profit from retail banking to make up for the slowdown in revenue from traditional profit generators, like trading, after the adoption of new financial regulations.
Banking giants like Bank of America and Citigroup are working to overhaul branches with the goal of more closely resembling an Apple store, where employees holding tablets and other high-tech gadgets tend to customers.
Last year, Wells Fargo opened a 1,200-square-foot branch, a so-called minibranch, in Washington.
JPMorgan, whose legacy bank branches averaged about 4,400 square feet several years ago, has already slimmed them down to 2,500 to 3,500 square feet. But the bank is looking to make more changes, and the building in Columbus is the center of its experiments.
The building is divided neatly in two. On one side, where a sign warns visitors that top-secret technologies are being developed inside, employees test new gadgets. On the other, a large room is set up to look like one of the new bank branches that Chase has begun to introduce; There are now 300 across the country.
To reimagine the branches, JPMorgan basically started from scratch. In 2011, Brad Nolan, Chase’s lead designer of branch and A.T.M. innovation, began convening focus groups across the country to determine what customers wanted. Some of the findings, Mr. Nolan said, were pretty straightforward: space and simplicity. And overwhelmingly, Mr. Sommers said, customers headed to branches for advice rather than to simply go to the tellers.
Still, reorienting customers and changing the supremacy of the tellers took some rejiggering.
Within the new branches, the teller line is no longer the centerpiece. That has been moved slightly to the side. Instead, the focal point is occupied by express banking kiosks, a kind of souped-up A.T.M. But don’t dare call them A.T.M.s, employees say, because the kiosks have more functions than the typical cash machine. They have large flat screens that resemble a tablet. Particularly helpful, the executives said, the kiosks untether the bankers from their desks.
Carrying their own tablets, bankers can mingle among customers. It is a work in progress. JPMorgan found that customers like to be approached straight on, not from behind or to the side, Mr. Nolan said. In a series of posters on the wall here, JPMorgan executives outlined the various ways â€" the quarterback sneak, the toss play and the option play â€" to approach customers at the kiosks.
Aside from their new look, the machines allow more customized transactions. Customers can opt, for example, to get cash in various denominations, not just $20s or $50s, since the new kiosks allow borrowers to withdraw previously impossible amounts, like $133.
The new machines are intended to be safer, too. Unlike traditional A.T.M.s that must be restocked with cash, these units replenish their own supplies from deposits, cutting down on the amount of times that employees have to ferry money to the vaults. The kiosks also have small video screens that display the area around the customer, to alert them to anyone approaching from behind. “Visibility was incredibly important,†Mr. Sheley said.
But it is in the lab on the other side of the building where the real security experiments are taking place. There, employees are working on new ways for customers to gain access to their cash. The bank is testing different biometric gadgets, including technology that scans irises and palms, to replace debit cards. The tools also promise to make banking safer.
Banks have long been experimenting with biometrics â€" technology that identifies people based on unique physical traits, like a fingerprint. But the technology, once the stuff of James Bond movies and spy novels, is close to turning up in local bank branches.
Standing at a prototype kiosk on a recent Friday afternoon, Mr. Nolan offered a glimpse of how the new technology worked. He tested two different ways of obtaining cash. The first was an iris scanner, which is shaped like binoculars and affixed to the kiosk. It quickly scanned Mr. Nolan’s irises â€" the colored portions of his eyeball â€" registering the scan against one in the bank’s database. After a couple of seconds, a green light flashed, allowing Mr. Nolan to enter his PIN and begin banking.
The bank is also working on a palm scanner. It works much like the iris scanner, but is even more difficult to impersonate. The scanners recognize customers based on their unique vein pattern. And just in case the scanners evoke nightmares of an apocalyptic future where bandits chop off hands to gain access to bank accounts, the scanners also register a pulse. Put simply, you have to be alive to access the machines. JPMorgan plans to introduce the palm-scanner technology this year, but does not yet have plans to introduce the kiosks with iris scanners.
Beyond the branch experiments, JPMorgan executives in Columbus are also developing portable and completely self-contained banking kiosks that can be deployed during emergencies â€" say, after a hurricane or earthquake â€" to dispense cash even when branches are closed. The units are generator-powered and fold up into a shipping container. Security lights on the units help create a well-lighted area.
Mr. Sheley acknowledged that the experiments would continue. “You basically have to future-proof everything.â€
