LONDON (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co will launch a digital consumer bank in Britain under its Chase brand within months, the U.S. banking giant said on Wednesday.

The bank said the new business had already recruited 400 people and would offer a range of products, including current accounts.

The UK venture will be led by Sanoke Viswanathan, who has been named chief executive. Viswanathan was previously chief administrative officer for JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank.

The digital bank will be headquartered in London’s Canary Wharf financial district, with customers supported from a new call centre in Edinburgh.

Reports about a likely tilt by JPMorgan at the UK consumer market have been circulating for around a year, but the bank had publicly disclosed few details.

“The UK has a vibrant and highly competitive consumer banking marketplace, which is why we’ve designed the bank from scratch to specifically meet the needs of customers here,” said Gordon Smith, CEO of consumer and community banking for JPMorgan.

(Reporting by Iain Withers; Editing by Jan Harvey)

(Reuters) – Boeing Co’s modified 737 MAX airliner is safe to return to service in Europe, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said on Wednesday, lifting a 22-month flight ban after two crashes of the jet which caused 346 deaths.

EASA Executive Director Patrick Ky said it had “every confidence” that the plane was safe following an independent European review of changes ranging from cockpit software to maintenance checks and pilot training.

“Let me be quite clear that this journey does not end here,” Ky said in a statement.

“We have every confidence that the aircraft is safe, which is the precondition for giving our approval. But we will continue to monitor 737 MAX operations closely as the aircraft resumes service.”

Regulators around the world grounded the MAX in March 2019, after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet five months after one flown by Indonesia’s Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea. A total of 346 passengers and crew members were killed in the two crashes.

The United States lifted its ban in November, followed by Brazil and Canada. China, which was first to ban the plane after the second crash, and which represents a quarter of MAX sales, has not said when it will act.

Relatives of some crash victims have strongly criticised the move the clear Boeing’s best-selling airplane.

EASA represents 31 mainly EU nations, excluding Britain which formally left the bloc this month. Britain is expected to issue its own separate approval on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Rachit Vats; editing by Jason Neely)

By Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) – During the last three months of 2020, Apple Inc delivered its flagship iPhone 12 model weeks later than normal iPhone debuts and shuttered some of its stores due to the pandemic.

But Wall Street is still expecting a near-record sales quarter for the Cupertino, California company’s signature device when it reports fiscal first-quarter earnings on Wednesday, with estimates of $59.8 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv as of Jan. 26. If Apple beats the number, it could eclipse its all-time record of $61.58 billion in iPhone sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2018.

Analyst largely attribute the boost to the timing of the iPhone 12 lineup, which had a new look, 5G cellular data connectivity and new models at the top and bottom of the sizing range.

“They have an extremely good understanding of what their refresh cycle looks like and when waves are possible and whey they are not,” said Ben Bajarin, head of consumer technologies at Creative Strategies. “Every bit of data across China and Europe has shown that not only was the installed base getting older, but people were not refreshing. I think (Apple) knew it would be heavy refresh cycle.”

Analyst also expect strong Mac sales of $8.69 billion, according to Refinitiv data from Jan. 26, thanks in part to the introduction of models with the first central processor chip for its laptops and desktop that Apple designed itself. Overall, analysts expect $103.28 billion in sales and earnings per share of $1.41 for Apple’s fiscal first quarter.

A “super cycle” of booms in iPhone sales after several more modest years are not new to Apple – the company’s previous high came after it announced the iPhone X, with a new design. During previous cycles, Apple’s shares often traded at lower price-to-earnings ratios than its rivals due to Apple’s dependence on the iPhone.

But those ratios have risen over the past year, and analyst Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein wondered how much further they can go.

“At 33x consensus (fiscal year 2021 earnings per share), and buyside expectations above the Street’s, we struggle to see case for material outperformance in (Apple), absent a surprise product announcement or migration to a bundled hardware subscription model,” he wrote in a note to clients.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)