Jamie Dimon Has a Lot to Say About Everything

Welcome to Bloomberg’s Banking Monitor. Every Thursday we’ll deliver you the top news of the global banking industry with emerging trends, winners and losers and market opportunities. Sign up now if you’re not already on the list.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. boss Jamie Dimon sat down with Bloomberg TV for an extensive interview that could fill this entire newsletter all by itself. The short version is that Dimon covered topics including war, global trade, market exuberance and artificial intelligence, just to name a few. The latter, he said, will change everything. It’s worth your time to watch the whole session.

AI was indeed a dominant theme this week. At Charles Schwab, CEO Rick Wurster is planning to use AI to extend benefits usually reserved for wealthy clients to the less affluent. A Bank of Canada official extolled AI for its potential to increase output per hour worked, boost wages and save money for consumers. The soaring costs of AI are turning into a competitive barrier by making it more expensive for new Wall Street rivals to catch up — an advantage for established firms like Citadel Securities.

Perhaps it’s time to go short on science fiction books, because AI is conjuring new realities faster than any author can dream up plot lines. Developers and financiers are talking about data centers in space, while Goldman Sachs foresees AI taking over the back office from humans and CME Group wants to start a futures market for computing power.

That other important acronym, SRT, was also on a hot streak this week, with risk transfer deals being minted at a record pace in Europe. In Hong Kong, the risks, alas, have already landed and bankers are holding fire sales to extinguish record levels of bad debt. French banks won’t touch certain risks, specifically Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, so she’s seeking loans elsewhere on the continent.

Looking backward, the 1970s are officially over: SEC officials want to abolish the “gag rule,” which for more than 50 years required that anyone who settles an enforcement action must refrain from publicly disputing the findings and any injunction against future violations. Critics of the current policy like Elon Musk and Mark Cuban say it takes away their First Amendment rights. Corporate governance fans contend the rule allows miscreants to avoid taking responsibility for misdeeds. Wags would say it means “not admitting we did it and promising never to do it again.” Whatever the interpretation, the rule is likely to be gone soon. — Rick Green