While rival Goldman Sachs bought Hull Group Inc. in 1999 to expand in electronic markets and algorithmic trading, JPMorgan’s predecessor, Chase Manhattan Corp., purchased the U.K.’s Robert Fleming Holdings Ltd. in 2000 for $7.7 billion to boost its fund-management and investment-banking businesses. The U.S. bank spent a further 1 billion pounds in 2009 ($1.7 billion) to buy Cazenove Group, a 190-year-old British brokerage.

JPMorgan hired Frank Troise from Barclays Plc in 2010 to run the firm’s electronic client-solutions business. Shuya Kekke joined last year from Goldman Sachs to head Asia-Pacific sales for electronic trading.

Throsby is a 27-year veteran of investment banking who took on positions in equity derivatives and trading at banks from Goldman Sachs to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and managed Citadel LLC’s Asian operation. He joined JPMorgan in April 2010.

Investments in technology in the past four years have lifted the business’ offering to match that of peers, according to Throsby.

“What we are up against is that our competitors enjoy an entrenched feeling of familiarity and comfort from their installed client base,” the banker said in reference to electronic trading. “I am confident that we’ll break through as it is our relentless focus. It is a multi-year grind of taking market share every year.”

Very Aggressive

Throsby also said JPMorgan wasn’t as successful as other banks in recent years in getting paid for its services.

“In the past, those top players in this space were very aggressive in having persistent, repeated conversations with their clients, saying, ‘What are you giving us?’” he said. “That was never our approach. That’s something that other firms were far more effective at earlier than we were.”

Earnings at the corporate and investment bank, led by Daniel Pinto in London, tumbled 57 percent to $858 million last year, driven by a $1.5 billion charge from changing the valuation of some over-the-counter derivatives to incorporate funding costs, JPMorgan reported Jan. 14. Still, the bank said it was ranked No. 1 for global investment-banking fees in 2013.

Lower Profitability