JPMorgan Chase has recruited a veteran middle-market banker to its Nashville-area operations.

Karen Bell has joined Chase from Bank of America as a senior banker in its middle-market group. Bell has more than 10 years industry experience. She began her career at Bank of America as a client manager analyst and was most recently a client manager in its middle-market division.

Bell will report to Nicole Maynard, president of Chase Tennessee, which has its headquarters in Roundabout Plaza. Her hiring brings Chase's area commercial team to nine and is the latest in a series of moves by senior local lenders, many of them from market leaders Regions Bank and BofA.

Bell is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and also earned an MBA from Belmont University. She is member of the development committee of the local chapter of the YWCA.

JPMorgan Chase has $2.3 trillion in assets and a domestic branch network of more than 5,000 offices. Across Tennessee, the bank in 2010 made more than 200,000 new loans and lines of credit to consumers and small businesses and funded more than $1.5 billion in home loans.