Topline
During an annual Senate committee hearing on Wall Street oversight, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Calif.) laid into big bank CEOs—and specifically targeted the billionaire head of the nation's largest bank—for collecting billions of dollars in overdraft fees last year despite regulators urging them to cancel collections during the pandemic.
Jamie Dimon, Chair and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, takes his seat to testify before the House Financial ... [+]
Key Facts
Opening her line of questioning Wednesday, Warren asked the CEOs of Citibank, JPMorgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo whether they followed guidance from bank regulators last year to waive overdraft fees for customers during the pandemic—a question to which no one responded.
"I'm not seeing anyone raise a hand, and that's because none of you gave the same help to your customers that the bank regulators gave to you," Warren then said, referring to the Federal Reserve's announcement last April that it would waive overdraft fees for big banks while giving them increased access to credit.
The senator then singled out Jamie Dimon, the billionaire head of JPMorgan Chase, for the nearly $1.5 billion the bank made last year from overdraft fees—more than any other bank, including Wells Fargo and Bank of America, which collected $1.3 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively.
Dimon rebutted by saying JPMorgan waived overdraft fees for customers who requested refunds as a result of financial hardships incurred during the pandemic, but it's unclear how much those refunds totaled.
Asked if he would commit to refunding the overdraft fees, Dimon simply said "no," and when Warren followed up with the same question to the remaining CEOs, no one responded.
Crucial Quote
"You and your colleagues came in today to talk about how you stepped up and took care of customers during a pandemic, and it's a bunch of baloney; in fact, it's about $4 billion worth of baloney," Warren said Wednesday, referring to the combined sum of revenue from overdraft fees for the three big banks represented in the hearing.
Big Number
$29.1 billion. That's how much profit JPMorgan, the nation's largest bank, netted last year.
Key Background
Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) introduced legislation last year to temporarily ban overdraft fees during the pandemic, but the bill never made it through a deadlocked Congress, and other efforts in recent years have failed to garner bipartisan support. Such fees—typically around $35 per overdraft charge—amounted to a staggering $8.8 billion last year, according to an analysis by S&P Global, most of which have hit marginalized communities the hardest.
Further Reading
JPMorgan Posts Record $12.1 Billion Profit—Shattering Expectations, Despite Pandemic Highs (Forbes)
