NEW YORK–The CEO of the largest bank in the country—which is larger than the total assets of all U.S. credit unions combined–believes traditional financial institutions such as his should be “scared shitless” about emerging fintech competitors.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said he has watched fintech players such as PayPal and Square, as well as tech giants entering the financial services space, as they have exponentially grown users and market value.
"Absolutely, we should be scared shitless about that," Dimon said during a conference call with analysts, according to MSNBC. "We have plenty of resources, a lot of very smart people. We've just got to get quicker, better, faster…As you look at what we've done, you'd say we've done a good job, but the other people have done a good job, too.”
According to the report, Dimon's blunt assessment was in response to questions from analysts, including Mike Mayo of Wells Fargo, who pointed out that with rich, tech-like valuations, fintech players have "trounced" the traditional banks in recent years.
According to MSNBC, Dimon said he sent his deputies a list of global competitors, and that PayPal, Square, Stripe, Ant Financial as well as U.S. tech giants including Amazon, Apple and Google were names the bank needs to keep an eye on. Competition will be particularly tight in the world of payments, Dimon said during the call: "I expect to see very, very tough, brutal competition in the next 10 years. I expect to win, so help me God."
A Response is Planned
Dimon added that in some cases, the new players were "examples of unfair competition" that the bank would do something about eventually, MSNBC reported. He included players that take advantage of richer debit-card revenue for small banks and firms Dimon accused of not taking precautions against money laundering.
MSNBC reported Dimon specifically called out Plaid, the payments startup whose acquisition by Visa recently collapsed, saying "people who improperly use data that's been given to them, like Plaid."