In the age of fintech, Wall Street aristocracy JPMorgan Chase is loosening its dress code in a bid to shed its stuffy image – although bankers will still be expected to wear pullovers rather than hoodies.

In a memo seen by the Wall Street Journal, the bank says staffers can now wear business-casual – not weekend-casual – in a move that “reflects how the way we work is changing”.

A source tells the Journal that the decision to loosen up comes weeks after CEO Jamie Dimon and the bank’s management committee took a trip to Silicon Valley where they met counterparts at tech titans as well as potential partners and rivals from the fintech startup scene.

The meetings left top brass feeling that their strict dress code was out of step with their West Coast hosts.

The change will mainly affect customer-facing JPMorgan employees. Many of the bank’s 237,000 staffers – including 40,000 techies – already have a relaxed code and are free to turn up for work in their jeans.

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