JP Morgan has appointed Barry Sommers to lead an effort to boost the share of assets it holds for its mass affluent clients to more than 5 per cent via its Chase brand, the bank has announced.

Sommers, chief executive officer of JP Morgan Securities, will become chief executive of retail affluent and investment services, JP Morgan said in a statement. He reports to Charlie Scharf, head of retail financial services.

“Our initiative will help us serve customers better and could increase pretax profits by $500 million to $1 billion annually,” Scharf said in the statement.

The statement said the move was part of a “broad initiative to dramatically expand the bank's relationships with existing affluent customers and attract new customers”.

"We have made this initiative a strategic priority at JP Morgan Chase because we can do far more for the affluent clients who already like doing business with Chase through our extensive branch and ATM networks," said Scharf said.

While 8 per cent of Chase's Retail customers are affluent, their deposits and investments - held at Chase and elsewhere - represent two-thirds of all customers' deposits and investments. Chase's strategy is to earn more than its current 5 per cent share of those assets.

Sommers moves over from being the CEO of JP Morgan Securities, formerly known as Bear Stearns Private Client Services.  He also served in senior asset management roles at Bear Stearns and was in asset management sales to high net worth individuals and institutions at Goldman Sachs.