The US bank crisis that rattled global markets last month is probably nearing the end, even if more unforeseen failures occur, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said.
Only a handful of lenders have the problems that toppled Silicon Valley Bank, and when the industry starts reporting quarterly earnings next week, the numbers will probably be good, Dimon told CNN in an interview Thursday. Asked if more bank failures might come, he said he didn’t know.
“But if there are, I know honestly they’ll be resolved and it will probably be the last of them,” Dimon said. “I think we’re getting near the end of this particular crisis.”
The CEO also said it’s OK for a bank to fail if contagion to other lenders can be prevented. The banking system will reach that point with “monitoring, changing a few things,” he said. “Failure is OK, you just don’t want this domino effect.”
He added that the American banking system is safe, with lenders flush with “extraordinary” capital and liquidity.
Cutting Back
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Dimon, 67, has run JPMorgan since 2005, and is the only CEO from the 2008 financial crisis still in charge of a big bank. He said the recent turmoil in the financial industry had probably made a US recession more likely, though a downturn won’t necessarily happen.
“We are seeing people reduce lending a little bit, cut back a little bit and pull back a little bit,” he said.
US regional banks have been in turmoil after a run on deposits struck SVB and several other lenders. Rising interest rates depressed the value of bonds they bought when interest rates were low, and a sudden surge in customer withdrawals forced some of them to sell those assets at a loss. SVB was particularly affected because of the concentration of its clients, Dimon said in the interview, portions of which were aired on Friday.
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“Everyone knew about uninsured deposits, everyone knew about insured exposure, everyone knew about held-to-maturity portfolios,” said Dimon. “The only real difference” was SVB’s concentrated client base — a trait not shared by other regional banks, according to Dimon.
JPMorgan is among advisers to First Republic, a San Francisco-based lender that lost 88% of its stock market value this year as customers, fearing it may succumb to the same fate, pulled their money. An attempt by 11 stronger banks including JPMorgan to shore up the firm by depositing US$30 billion ($39.94 billion) gave First Republic more time to resolve the situation, Dimon said, declining to discuss the matter further.
Annual Letter
Dimon’s remarks build on an assessment he offered in an annual letter to shareholders earlier this week, in which he acknowledged that the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the emergency sale of Credit Suisse Group AG to UBS Group AG had “significantly changed the market’s expectations” for the economy.
“It has provoked lots of jitters in the market and will clearly cause some tightening of financial conditions as banks and other lenders become more conservative,” he said in the letter. Unclear, he wrote just days ago, is whether consumer spending may slow.
The government shouldn’t overreact to the banking crisis by imposing more rules on the industry, Dimon said. In his CNN interview, he added that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. should “probably” lift coverage levels, currently capped at US$250,000 per depositor.
