On Sept. 13, Jamie Dimon told Keefe, Bruyette & Woods that JPMorgan’s “overall productivity” had “taken a hit” during the coronavirus epidemic. The bank’s employees particularly seemed to treat Mondays and Fridays as half days, if that. Dimon and the higher-ups blamed it all on work-from-home, which is why several days earlier the bank informed senior sales and trading employees that their plague season in paradise was over, pestilent offices or no. But there may be another reason why so many seemed so distracted.
More than 500 JPMorgan Chase & Co. employees got assistance from taxpayers aimed at helping businesses through the pandemic… After noticing hundreds of employees had received government funds in their accounts, the bank began scrutinizing director-level employees and workers who received certain amounts, according to people with knowledge of the confidential review who spoke on condition they not be named. Of almost two dozen in that first group, the bank found five — none of them director-level employees — had improperly tapped the program, one of the people said.
Ultimately, the bank’s look at hundreds of deposits found many were probably legitimate — providing funds, for example, to side businesses run on workers’ own time. A JPMorgan spokeswoman declined to comment on its investigation.
JPMorgan Finds More Than 500 Workers Got U.S. Virus Relief Funds [Bloomberg]
Earlier: Well, Here’s One Way JPMorgan Became The Largest Distributor Of PPP Funds