Although from reading about contemporary banking you might get the idea all the business is getting done from mobile phones, physical branches and ATMs are still key to most banking interactions, from transactions to advice to wealth management.

So with 5,500 branches and 18,000 ATMs located across 23 states, JPMorgan Chase relies on geographic information systems (GIS),  along with customer data to choose facility locations and to support marketing.

“The customer data is quite impressive,” said Jeremiah Glascock, vice president and GIS market manager at Chase during the July Esri conference in San Diego. “One of every two of you has some sort of relationship with Chase.”

His group analyzes every piece of data that comes across its desks, he said. It had used that familiar data tool, Excel before moving much of its analysis to Esri GIS.

“What was spreadsheets has now evolved into a location strategy,” said Wally Johns, vice president and market research group manager at the bank. “Most data points have spatial components, such as branches, ATMs, where customers shop and where they live, and where our employees are located. We have a tremendous amount of data in-house.”

For several years the bank had a branch planning group of two people working with the site selection team to help make real estate decisions, and a separate marketing group doing geo-analytics to support direct marketing mail campaigns with very little overlap or information-sharing.

Then two years ago the bank decided to enter the Jacksonville, Florida market. Glascock and Johns got together and decided to collaborate on the project using Esri.

Instead of site planners going out in person and drawing on maps, the bank is using technology to build models, capture data from existing locations and work with the site teams.

“We had to persuade our clients that this was going to work for them,” Johns said. “We assured them that working together we could provide what they needed. We moved from a mapping exercise  to building out a location strategy for the Jacksonville market.”

From mapping providers the team has grown into an internal consulting firm at the bank.

Besides facility location planning and marketing, the GIS group is developing resilience planning for the bank.

“We experience minor and major disruptions every day of the week,” said Glascock, “From power outages and networks going down to terrorism, cyber attacks, bank robberies and storms. The business resiliency team has resource and tools to analyze the risks and prepare strategies to mitigate them, and that involves a whole lot of spatial data.”

During crisis events, ranging from protests near JPMC locations in the Philippines, nationwide strikes in Argentina to power outages and structure damage resulting from hurricanes like Hurricane Sandy, Glascock helped provide GIS application and analytical support.

“Now we are getting a lot of requests from folks we didn’t know had a need, from the investment bank to credit cards.”