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Watch: Elizabeth Warren calls out JPMorgan Chase CEO over pandemic overdraft fees
“You are the star of the overdraft show."
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren grilled JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon about charging customers almost $1.5 billion in overdraft fees.
At a May 26 Senate hearing, Warren criticized big banks for collecting billions in overdraft fees — which banks charge when customers spend more than they have in their account — during a financially brutal pandemic.
“You are the star of the overdraft show,” Warren said to Dimon. “Your bank JPMorgan collects more than seven times as much money in overdraft fees per account than your competitors.”
When Warren asked Dimon how much JPMorgan had collected in overdraft fees from consumers in 2020, he replied that he thought the numbers were inaccurate. Warren shot back that they were public numbers.
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“You had automatic protection, and the regulators recommended you offer that same kind of protection to your customers,” she said. “Do you know how much JPMorgan’s profit would have been in 2020 if you had followed the recommendations of the regulators and waived overdraft fees to help struggling consumers? In other words, without that overdraft money would your bank have been in financial struggle?”
Dimon said that JPMorgan Chase waived fees for customers upon request if they were under stress because of COVID, but Warren was not deterred.
“Do you know how much your profits would have been if you’d actually waived all overdraft fees as recommended? The answer is your profits would have been $27.6 billion,” she said. “So here’s the thing, you and your colleagues come in today to talk about how you stepped up and took care of customers during the pandemic and it’s a bunch of bologna.”
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Warren asked Dimon to commit to refunding the $1.463 billion the company made in overdraft fees during the pandemic.
His answer?
“No.”
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