[mrmcd]

Previous reporting on this (when the JPM civil suit was filed) mentioned that JPM didn't care about the fafsa forms business at all. They bought them entirely to get a big pile of marketing leads to sign up young people for banking services early in their adult life before they're signed up with other banks, through a brand they're already familiar with. Considering how many "$200 to open a new checking account!!" junk mail fliers Chase sends me, $41/lead must've seemed like a bargain.

She probably thought they would just be subsumed into a massive corporation, that JPM had shitty metrics and monitoring on their marketing campaign, and nobody would notice most of their emails were going nowhere.

[lordnacho]

Would the bank make 175M from 4M customers?

[cartermatic]

I think over a long enough term they would. It's about ~$44 a customer (assuming 100% retention). Once they're in the Chase ecosystem, it's easier for Chase to get them to add Chase credit cards, use Chase for a mortgage, interchange fees, minimum balance fees and so on.