Europe's rich can get loans from the biggest US bank by offering their luxury cars as collateral, which are physically stored at locations in England, Italy or Germany. JPMorgan has expanded its exclusive services from the Americas to the European market.
Europe's rich can borrow from JPMorgan if they pledge their luxury cars. Photo News
The Wall Street giant's private bank will offer customers the option to take out loans if they drive classic, rare or custom cars physically stored in European jurisdictions such as England, Italy and Germany. The service, already available to customers in the US, will also be extended to France, Switzerland and Spain, the bank announced in a statement published on Monday.
The push into lending comes as wealthy individuals use car collections – and other physical assets – as a way to diversify their wealth, building on the automotive sector's traditional status as a passion project. Classic cars from European brands such as Ferrari NV, Porsche AG and Mercedes-Benz Group AG have outperformed stock markets in recent years, and the overall market continued to grow in 2024, even amid a broader downturn for luxury assets, according to Bloomberg.
Luxury automobiles rank as the most popular luxury asset that the world's ultra-wealthy youth aspire to own personally, alongside real estate, according to Knight Frank's 2025 Wealth Report. This puts cars ahead of demand for private jets, wine and art collections and superyachts.
Among the world's rich betting on luxury cars is Mark Mateschiz, the 33-year-old son of the late co-founder of energy drink maker Red Bull GmbH, who bought British billionaire Bernie Ecclestone's car collection this year. French luxury billionaires father and son Francois and Francois-Henri Pinault, as well as tech tycoon Xavier Niel, are also backing a project to relaunch the historic French luxury car brand Delage Automobiles, a maker of hypercars costing at least 2 million euros each.
“We understand that car collecting is driven by both passion and investment”said Steven Hawkins, head of specialized lending at JPMorgan's international private bank.
Towards the end of September, JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced that it is adding a millionaire offering to dozens of the bank's branches, the latest offering in Chief Executive Jamie Dimon's ongoing efforts over the years to gain share in the wealth management business.
According to a statement issued on September 24, the bank placed JP Morgan Private Client employees in 53 branches in the affluent areas of New York, Connecticut, Florida and Texas. This is in addition to 18 financial centers and 15 offices serving customers with deposit and investment balances between $1 million and $5 million.
JPMorgan created the segment — not to be confused with Chase Private Client, for clients with at least $150,000, or JP Morgan Private Bank, for the ultra-wealthy — about a year ago, following its acquisition of First Republic Bank. This firm specialized in serving wealthy clients until it went bankrupt in 2023 and JPMorgan bought it out of the US public administration.
The First Republic model “it acted as a catalyst for us to really think about how to develop the right value proposition, the right offering and the right distribution channels,” Stevie Baron, head of high-net-worth banking at JPMorgan, said in an interview. The rapidly growing but highly fragmented customer base is “an underserved part of the market and one we're really focused on.”
Wealth management has become a key battleground on Wall Street in recent years, with banks of all sizes looking for more stable income. More than half a decade ago, Dimon launched a far-reaching growth initiative aimed at serving more of the ordinary rich in addition to the ultra-wealthy.
He formed a new unit within JPMorgan's consumer and community bank, which has about 5,000 branches in 48 states, and appointed Kristin Lemkau to lead it, Bloomberg writes in September. At the end of the second quarter, the unit had $1.16 trillion in client investment assets — more than double what it had at the start. The long-term ambition is $2 trillion, according to a presentation at an investor day earlier this year.
The top European countries with the most billionaires
Germany ranks first in Europe in the ranking of countries with the most billionaires and fourth worldwide. According to data published by Euronews, which cites Forbes, Germany has 171 billionaires, whose combined fortunes exceed 676.4 billion euros.
The richest German is Dieter Schwarz, the founder of the Lidl and Kaufland group, with an estimated fortune of 35 billion euros ($41 billion). He is also ranked 37th in the world.
In second place in Europe is Italy, with 74 billionaires and a total wealth estimated at 289 billion euros ($339 billion). Italy's richest person is Giovanni Ferrero, the heir to the Ferrero confectionery empire, who has a fortune of 32.6 billion euros ($38.2 billion), ranking 41st globally.
The United Kingdom is in third place with 55 billionaires, who accumulate 203 billion euros ($238 billion), and the richest Briton is Michael Platt, the founder of the BlueCrest Capital fund, whose fortune is estimated at 14 billion pounds (16 billion euros), ranking 106th in the world.
France completes the top four European countries, with 52 billionaires in 2025. The richest of them is Bernard Arnault, the chairman of the luxury conglomerate LVMH, which owns famous brands such as Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Sephora, his wealth in 2025 is estimated at 152 billion euros ($178 billion), which places him in 5th place in the world, after occupying the first position in 2024.
Romania ranks 20th in Europe, with six billionaires included in the Forbes list for 2025, in this order:
* Ion Șiriac – 2.1 billion dollars
* Dragoș Pavăl – 2 billion dollars
* Daniel Dines – 1.4 billion dollars
* Adrian Paval – 1.3 billion dollars
* Matthew Zacharias & Ion Stoica – 2.5 billion dollars together.
Forbes estimates that, globally, there are more than 3,000 billionaires, with a total wealth of 16.1 trillion dollars (13.7 trillion euros) and that more than half of this wealth is concentrated in the United States, China and India, countries that also gather the largest number of billionaires.
The Forbes list is based on estimates in US dollars and reflects individuals' citizenships, not their actual country of residence.
