(Yahoo! Finance) - JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon didn't discuss US election candidates during a public appearance Monday, but he had plenty to say about his current regulators in Washington, D.C.
The boss of the biggest bank in the US called a raft of regulatory proposals from his overseers "an onslaught," criticized Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) director Rohit Chopra, and made it clear the industry is willing to push back on new rules in court.
"It's time to fight back," Dimon said while speaking at an American Bankers Association convention in New York City. "I've had it with this sh*t."
"We don't want to get involved in litigation just to make a point," he added, "but I think if you're in a knife fight, you'd better damn well bring a knife."
The comments offered the latest example of how the biggest banks in the US are getting bolder about confronting their overseers.
Last week, lobbying group Bank Policy Institute and the Kentucky Bankers Association sued the CFPB over a new open banking rule that would make it easier for consumers to transfer their personal data between financial services providers.
The banking organizations used their lawsuit to accuse the CFPB of “overstepping its statutory mandate” and warned the new rule ultimately would jeopardize consumers' financial data.
Dimon added his support for this challenge Monday, saying, "No one is against open banking, but I'm against screen scraping," referring to the sharing of data with third parties, including riskier entities.
He also singled out the head of the CFPB, saying, "Rohit is a very smart guy who has one major flaw, which I told him personally, which is that you use your brains to justify what you already think."
Dimon, in response to questions while on stage, discussed the reservations he has about a number of other regulatory proposals and practices, from how bank examiners handled the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023 to a long-awaited plan requiring big banks to hold greater capital buffers against future losses.
The newest version of that plan, known as the Basel III endgame, may have to wait until after the end of the election, he said.
"A lot of these rules hurt lower-paid individuals, not most of the people in this room,” he told the bankers attending the ABA conference.
Dimon didn’t offer any specific comments about former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris, but he did offer some general comments on political discourse.
"I wish people would stop insulting each other and gaslighting and scapegoating and things like that. We should treat each other [with] more respect and educate the world about America and about civics," he said.
Dimon, who has been an outspoken voice on a range of issues, especially economic policymaking, has offered advice to both 2024 campaigns, Yahoo Finance has reported, via informal and formal advisers to both candidates.
And while he hasn’t given a full-throated endorsement of either presidential candidate publicly or privately, he has favored Harris in private conversations.
On Monday, Dimon also acknowledged the strength of the US economy while echoing prior concerns about the return of rising inflation.
"Inflation, in my view, may not go away so quickly," he said, pointing to longer-term trends that suggest it could rebound as it did during the 1970s.
"You might go into next year 2026 where it starts ticking up a little bit like it did in the 70s," he said.
By David Hollerith - Senior Reporter
