US banks are in ‘good mode’ under Donald Trump, says JPMorgan executive

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Wall Street’s light-touch regulatory regime under President Donald Trump has fueled the world’s largest trade, with US banks “in early go-mode” and “animal spirits alive,” said a senior JPMorgan Chase executive. Economy.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, the Wall Street lender’s head of asset and wealth management, Mary Erdos, said Trump’s deregulation approach would boost the U.S. economy and was “promising” by easing some of the burden on banks. Industry in the Joe Biden administration.

“If you look at the last administration and the number of significant new regulations, there were eight times the number of significant new regulations compared to the previous Trump administration,” said Erdos, who is seen as a contender to replace Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan.

“And with that comes millions of man-hours of paperwork. Work . . . that clogs up the system and keeps the economy from keeping healthy flywheels. So we’re looking forward to that,” he said.

Erdos’ comments come as banking executives in Europe worry that the light-touch regulatory approach championed by Trump could alienate European banks if regulators on the continent demand stricter enforcement of rules such as Basel 3.1.

Speaking on the same panel on Tuesday, Bill Winters, chief executive of Standard Chartered, said: “It is important that rules are put in place consistently so that this is not inconsistent from market to market.”

A senior bank executive said that while Europe would find it difficult to roll back some regulations, the UK could lean towards the US system.

The executive said, “The UK government will be at the forefront of the controls.” They have delayed the implementation of Basel III to see if and how it will be implemented in the US.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan’s Erdos said easier regulation in the US would allow more trading and companies to go public. “Companies don’t want to go public or can’t go public because of heavy regulatory burdens and hopefully they’ll see that[change],” she said.

She added that JPMorgan had set up a “war room” to analyze and review Trump’s executive orders overnight and applauded the US president’s decision to ban remote work for federal employees. This month, JPMorgan said it wanted all employees to return to the office five days a week starting in March.

“Time will tell, but most of this is exactly what you do to have a very commercial environment,” Erdos said. “We thank God that the US government has done it, and we hope that this will keep us competitive and put us ahead of other governments around the world.”

Banking lobby groups also welcomed Trump’s executive order to implement a quick ban on pending Biden legislation and pushed the president to go further.

“The incoming administration will need to extend its review beyond the expected regulations to include policy statements, interpretive rules, and agency actions applied by regulators as binding rules,” said Greg Baier, the bank’s CEO. A policy institute representing large and mid-sized US lenders.