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NEW YORK- JPMorgan Chase & Co is expanding a recruitment program to fast-track more Black college students to internships and jobs in the investment bank, commercial bank and asset & wealth management businesses, the company said on Wednesday.

The Advancing Black Pathways fellowship is a six-week paid, professional development program that started in JPMorgan's consumer bank as part of efforts to increase workforce diversity.

Fellowships for roughly 140 college sophomores and juniors to work in other big units will help to familiarize them with JPMorgan's business structure, its dozens of internal acronyms, and introduce them to mentors, said Rob Walke, global head of corporate and investment bank campus recruiting for JPMorgan.

"This (program) is trying to give people a leg up in the process and set expectations for what we (want) them to know when they arrive," Walke said.

Morgan Stanley recently expanded a similar program aimed at recruiting Black professionals to its global markets business.

In recent years, JPMorgan has expanded the number of colleges it recruits from and introduced more job training and mentoring, tactics Walke says have worked.

Among the students who completed the Advancing Black Pathways fellowship in 2019, 85% returned as JPMorgan interns in 2020. Roughly three-quarters of those interns were hired as full-time analysts this year, according to a JPMorgan spokesman.