As JPMorgan Chase prepares to enter southern Maine’s crowded retail banking market, rivals are watching but not standing still. “They’re formidable,” Curtis Simard, president and CEO of Bar Harbor Bank and Trust (with $3.6 billion in assets) says of JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank with $2.7 trillion in assets. Both opened commercial offices in Portland in 2018, and now the Wall Street behemoth is preparing to open its first retail office there along with four others in Greater Portland by 2022. “We’ll be watching to make sure they don’t have broader plans than that,” says Simard. Image Chase Bank will start its Maine expansion with a downtown Portland branch.