Banks to soon have excess cash: Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co

NEW YORK: Jamie Dimon, the chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co, said banks are accumulating more capital than they need as regulators push lenders to build equity.

“I don’t think it’s just JPMorgan,” Dimon said on Tuesday at a conference discussing the New York-based company, which disclosed plans to eliminate as many as 19,000 jobs.

“I think all banks will have too much capital in two and a half years. And they’re not going to know what to do with it.” Dimon, 56, has said excessive regulation could impede growth as international authorities and the Federal Reserve push banks to guard capital to better withstand another financial crisis.

JPMorgan halted buybacks under pressure from regulators last year after uncovering a trading loss at its chief investment office that swelled to more than $6.2 billion. The CEO, responding to analysts’ questions, dismissed the argument that clients may switch to banks that have the highest capital ratios.

“What I hear UBS saying in their presentations is, ‘If I’m an affluent customer, I’ll feel a lot better about going to UBS knowing that they have a 13% capital ratio than another big bank with a 10% ratio,” said Mike Mayo, an analyst at CLSA.

“Do you agree with that or disagree?” Dimon countered, “so you would go to UBS” rather than JPMorgan? “I didn’t say that,” Mayo responded. “I said that was their argument.”