JPMorgan Chase, the second largest bank by assets in the US, beat forecasts from Wall Street analysts by reporting a 67 percent rise in Q1 profits, bringing figures to $5.56bn compared with $3.33bn in the same period last year.
The jump in results was attributed to an increased performance from the credit card group and its investment banking and trading businesses, which helped offset losses from the retail bank.
Net revenue fell 8.5 percent year-on-year to $25.79bn from $28.2bn and was blamed on lower income from mortgage fees and a decrease in securities gains.
Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan, said: “The firm’s results reflected a strong quarter across the investment bank and solid performance from card services, commercial banking, treasury & securities services, and asset management. However, this performance was more than offset by the extraordinarily high losses we still are bearing on mortgage-related issues. Unfortunately, these losses will continue for a while.”
