JPMorgan Chase Chairman & CEO Jamie Dimon Speaks with CNBC’s Leslie Picker on “The Exchange” Today

WHEN: Today, Monday, March 2, 2026

WHERE: CNBC’s “The Exchange”

Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with JPMorgan Chase Chairman & CEO Jamie Dimon on CNBC’s “The Exchange” (M-F, 1PM-2PM ET) today, Monday, March 2. Following is a link to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/03/02/dimon-if-iran-conflict-isnt-prolonged-there-wont-be-major-inflationary-hit.html.

All references must be sourced to CNBC.

LESLIE PICKER: Kelly, thank you so much. And thank you, Jamie, for taking the time to sit down with us on what is a very important day. Everyone’s trying to make some sense of the news over the weekend. And you have long said that the markets have underappreciated the, quote, “complex geopolitical conditions.” What do you make of the latest developments with Iran and the market’s reaction today?

JAMIE DIMON:  First of all, hi. Hello, CNBC. Hello, Kelly. The first thing I want to say is that my heart goes out and we’re praying for all our soldiers and sailors overseas and our employees. We obviously have employees in a lot of those cities. That’s the most important thing. The second thing is the hope that this might lead to a long, just peace in the Middle East. I think the odds of that are higher. Tom Friedman wrote a great op-ed today. While the risk associated with this is very hard to predict, the ultimate outcomes, maybe it will be a catalyst to get that done, and, obviously the sooner, the better. So, and you see what it’s doing the markets, not dramatic. Economic, the economy is not often driven by something like that unless it’s prolonged.

PICKER: What about inflation, as people kind of think about the potential ripple effects of higher oil prices, for example? Obviously, today’s move is just one day. Do you see a risk that this could lead to sustained inflation over the long run?

DIMON: Not, I don’t think this thing in an isolated way will. I think there’s some risk there is more inflation than people think, and that could be like a skunk in a party if that ever happens. Hopefully, it doesn’t happen. And no one actually knows. But this right now will increase gas prices a little bit. And, again, if it’s not prolonged, it’s not going to be a major inflationary hit. Again, if it went on for a long time, that would be different.

PICKER: Another concern that I have seen mentioned out there is the risk of retaliatory cyberattacks, banks being a potential target there. How concerned are you about that? I know that’s something that you mentioned in your letter about a year ago.

DIMON: Yes, I think the most important thing is that we keep the Western world free and safe for democracy. And people like this have gotten away literally with murder for 50 years. So that’s far more important. But, as a corollary to that, you got to expect there will be cyberattacks or terrorist attacks either here, around the world. Banks may be targets. So may plenty of other people. And we always try to be prepared for that. We never try to predict when, why, where. We spend a lot of money protecting ourselves from cyber. We think it’s part of our job. But I have always said I would consider that one of the highest risk banks bear, not just the cycle, cyber.

PICKER: Yes. I remember that from your letter last year. And, of course, we are here at the Leveraged Finance Conference. It’s the 31st annual event. So let’s dig into your view on credit. Broadly, last week, you said at JPMorgan’s investor update that the environment reminds you of ’05, ’06, ’07, that people are leveraging to the hill, and you see some dumb things out there happening. Where specifically are those dumb things happening?

DIMON: Let me give you a better perspective. Individual is in very good shape, debt-to-service ratios. Corporations are in good shape. Government is not. Governments around the world, like the United States government, have far more debt than they have ever had before. We’re going to have a cycle one day. I think, when we have the cycle — and it may be driven by geopolitics. It may not. Those geopolitical things are kind of longer-tail items. And there are a lot of short-term good items. I think the One Big Beautiful Bill will help drive growth. I think deregulation of banks and other companies could help drive kind of growth. The — still looking at that part. It may be inflation. So, credit will have a normal cycle. I believe that it’ll be worse than a normal one when it happens. So there will be one. And that’s because of complacency, asset prices very high. Credit spreads are very low. I don’t think a lot of people have seen a credit cycle. Not everyone who makes loans is very good at it. So that — those bad actors may be banks, not private credit. It’s just across the board. And we have seen issues. I wouldn’t call them major issues. I wouldn’t call them systemic issues, but issues of bad underwriting, and some more fraud than there should be, and things like that. So, I’m concerned about it, but we’re prepared for it. We always prepare for all these outcomes. We will see. And then we say about — we obviously underwrite credit and compete. So we see people, and we do, sometimes doing things that we would never do. That’s what I’m referring to. That’s not private credit. That’s other people providing credit who we think are just going a bridge too far to make a loan they probably shouldn’t be making.

PICKER: I think that’s an important distinction, because, with the cockroach comment—

DIMON: Right.

PICKER: As well as the comment about people doing dumb things, I think a lot of people took that to mean private credit specifically.

DIMON: No, I never meant that from the cockroach comment or this thing. This is underwriting standards, and not just leveraged, not just EBITDA, but also assumptions you’re making in revenues and expenses, covenants as you put in place, underwriting the person you’re doing business with and their history. Sometimes, it’s very specific things that create what you would consider a secured loan almost unsecured, the ability to move assets out of a company. It’s all these things that create far more risk in that loan than we would be willing to bear.

PICKER: What about private credit and software? We have seen some volatility in recent weeks. Do you see — do you think some of the recent concerns and headlines and discussions about default rates in worst-case scenario are all — is all of that warranted and do you think it is right to be pinning that specifically on software and private credit?

DIMON: I wouldn’t. And I just said it has nothing to do with software. It’s just credit in general and prices in general and things like that. But, in every credit cycle, industries go bad that you never expect that hadn’t gone bad before. So, like in the year 2000, it was mom and dad dividend stocks, the utilities and the telecom. In ’08, it was Warren Buffett stocks, media. This time, it might be software. They’re a part of the market. They will just — they will — maybe that cycle will be worse for software than other people. And I — look, it’s possible that AI will attack parts of software more than people think. It’s possible it’s going to do other things that we haven’t even thought about yet. So, to me, yes, it’s those things. When you look at risk out there, you should incorporate, what are the forms of risk you didn’t imagine that could be given you thought and can you handle it? No one can avoid a credit cycle. The question is, did you, you want to just do a better job than everybody else when you go through one.

PICKER: Lloyd Blankfein, who was CEO of Goldman Sachs when, of course, you were—

DIMON: Great friend of mine, wonderful guy, yes.

PICKER: As I expected.

DIMON: I miss him.

PICKER: Nice to see him back out there. He’s been talking about private credit specifically and some of the potential risks of putting private assets, private credit into the hands of retail investors and eventually 401(k)s. Do you agree with that notion that it is potentially risky and could draw undesirable attention from regulators?

DIMON: I’m kind of two natures, OK? You’re an adult. You have the right to do what you want with your money. You have the right to smoke cigarettes. I don’t think that’s wise. I think these are in some cases more complex. And they make promises of dividends and values and stuff like that. Whenever you go to retail — so it’s not a statement of private credit. Whenever you go to retail, you better have a heightened sense of what can happen. So if you have to cut a dividend and the value goes from 100 to 70, big institutions are used to that. They made those decisions. They underwrote it. Mom and dad, they may say, wait a second, I thought you had better standards. I never knew my dividend could be cut. I was promised X. And then they start to send letters to the SEC. And the SEC has to investigate it. And when they investigate it and they call their company, they’re going to get e-mails. And inside the e-mail is going to say, this doesn’t meet the standards of a JPMorgan. We really shouldn’t be selling this to grandmas. And then you’re in trouble, whether those e-mails are right or wrong. And so, yes, you have the highest standards. But the standards could be done in a — and we all do this a little bit. What are your standards? Do you limit it? What’s the transparency? If a JPMorgan does it, we underwrite who’s doing it. We re-underwrite the loans. So you have to — if you set the right standards, it’ll be OK or at least far better than the people who don’t do it the right way. And so it’s not doing it the right way will get you in trouble.

PICKER: Going back to—

DIMON: But, yes, I agree with him in general, yes.

PICKER: Yes. No, it sounds like it. Going back to the subject of AI disintermediation, last week, we saw Block layoff almost half of its work force as a result of efficiencies it believes or at least it says it could gain from AI. You have been worried about what you call derivative effects of replacing jobs. Do you think this is just the beginning? And, if so, what do you think that would mean for the broader economy?

DIMON: Yes. So I, the first thing is, AI is real. It’s going to create a lot of great things. And I really mean it. Your kids may be working four days a week and their kids three days a week, living wonderful lives, living to 100. A lot of cancer will be cured. Accident rates in cars will drop dramatically. So let’s just put it in the big picture. And companies should deploy it to do a better job for their customers. So we’re not going to hesitate deploying it. We’re going to have our own redeployment of people if they’re displaced. And what I was mentioning there is that, if it happens too quick — so most technologies took years to roll out, Internet, even cars and Caterpillar tractors on farms and electricity, because you got to build the whole infrastructure here. This may be pretty quick adoption. So it may create some of that joblessness faster than people can retrain, move and stuff like that. And I’m just — my view is, we, society, government and business, should be thinking about, what can we do to get the benefits of the AI and diminish those negatives, if in fact they happen? I’m not saying they’re happening. What I’m simply saying is, like, at JPMorgan, we prepare for things that may not happen. I think the government should be doing that here because there is a possibility to happen in certain job types. And then so we should have retraining, income assistance, relocation, things like that, that give someone a chance at a good-paying job. It’s not enough to say to someone making $150,000 a year, you’re out of a job, and your next job is stocking shelves of $30,000 who has a family. So I just want to be conscious about, if it happens, are we prepared? And we’re not yet. This is about getting schools and businesses thinking through, maybe incentives to retrain and relocate people, not just lay them off, like, things like that.

PICKER: As a business leader, how do you think about — how do you think about that, and especially, as you mentioned, the technology changes so rapidly?

DIMON: Yes. Well, we’re going to adopt it ourselves. I don’t worry about it at all. We are going to do it, do a better job for our customer. We’re not going to put our heads in the sand. And, as a business, remember, we have 10 percent attrition a year. So if you — so, that means effectively, over five or six years, you can cut your work force in half just by not hiring people. And so I just — I don’t want to — but be — you got to be ahead of it. You can’t wait, deny it, not adopt it. I have to do a good job for my customer. So we are going to prepare ourselves. And we do a lot of redeployment. We have been redeploying people for 15 years. This job disappeared, we offer you a job over there with training. And for the most part, they take it. Every now and then, they want to retire or try something different or they don’t want to move or something. But we’re going to do it ourselves. I just think government has got to be thinking about this too.

PICKER: Yes. You and your peers have reportedly clashed with Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong over the CLARITY Act, and specifically this idea of crypto exchanges offering rewards for stablecoins. And Armstrong was on CNBC with Sara Eisen a few weeks ago from Mar-a-Lago, and he said there’s a path forward for the market structure bill that’s a — quote — “win-win outcome” for everyone. How are you feeling about it right now?

DIMON: Yes. So, the banks feel strongly that there should be, you know, rewards are the same as interest, and that a compromise would be that you could pay rewards on transactions, not balances. If you are going to be holding balances and paying interest, that’s the bank. You should be regulated by a bank. So we have been firm, one thing over here, yes, but if you want to be a bank, become a bank. Then you can do whatever you want under bank laws. So I remind people, your viewers may not know, banks have restrictions and requirements, FDIC insurance, AML, BSA. We have Community Responsibility Act, which means we have to open 25 percent of our branches in LMI neighborhoods. We have social requirements. We have liquidity requirements, capital requirements, transparency requirements, reporting requirements, board requirements, government’s requirements. If they want to be a bank, so be it. So what we basically say is, level playing field by product. It can’t be you have these people doing one thing without any regulation like that and these people do another. And if you do, do that, the public will pay. It will get bad. So I just, people should take a deep breath at, what does he want to, and we want competition. We’re actually one of the biggest users of blockchain. And we have created a JPMorgan deposit coin. We have moved money real-time payments. We’re moving a lot of data now using blockchain. So, we’re in favor of competition, but it’s got to be fair and balanced, level playing field. It’s not, it can’t be completely skewed.

PICKER: And the risk—

DIMON: For the safety of the system, not just the fairness of competition.

PICKER: Right, to your point about FDIC insurance.

DIMON: Well, AML. What about — are they — we have—

PICKER: Anti-money laundering, yes.

DIMON: We — I say we — yes, we have money laundering requirements, reporting requirements, which I think is good, to some extent is good, because you want a safe financial system, as best you can make it.

PICKER:  Let’s dig into some of those requirements, because the president, of course, is suing you and your firm for at least $5 billion over allegations that you debanked him for political reasons. You have also recently confirmed in a court filing that more than 50 of the president’s accounts were closed in February of 2021. JPMorgan has also said, of course, that the suit has no merit and that you don’t close accounts for political or religious reasons. So help us understand the gap there.

DIMON: Yes. Well, I mean, look, both could be true. I don’t like debanking. And we debank people because it causes legal and regulatory risk for us. And reputation is a funny word, because — and so is — so is political, because you could say, well, the Nazi Party, well, we probably would debank you. So — but we don’t do it generally for political or religious reasons, for other reasons. And, sometimes, we can’t even tell those people what the those other reasons are. We have to file suspicious activity reports. And you don’t make a lot of money in bank accounts. So it’s been much easier for a bank to say, I’m not taking the risk, let them go bank elsewhere. Very often, the government knows much more than we know. And so I’m sympathetic. And we were quite clear. I respect the president’s right to sue the company. We respect our right to defend ourselves. That’s why you have courts. The case has no merit. It’s going to have years of discovery type of thing. And we’ll see what happens. But I agree with him. They have the right to be angry. I’d be angry too. Like, why is a bank allowed to do that? But they’re forced to do it. You remember Operation Choke Point and the punishment that banks go through when they miss something or coulda, woulda, shoulda. And it’s all in hindsight. And so both cases are right here.

PICKER: So has your process around closing accounts or anything, has it changed?

DIMON: Oh, yes. Every time there are criticisms — first of all, the laws were supposed to have changed. They didn’t. And so, but we have a second chance look now. We are much more critical. We have better reporting, as opposed to just if it hits these terms, we debank them.

PICKER: Interesting.

DIMON: So — and that — there’s a lot of detail behind that. It’ll never be perfect. Sometimes, we debank because we ask you to give us information, you don’t give it to us. We will just close the account. And then we call you up and say, oh, oh, I didn’t realize you were looking for me. I never saw the e-mail or but, sometimes, it’s, like, if you are a certain type of account, we need to know your source of funds and use of funds. And if you’re not willing to tell us, we can’t bank you. And so there are all these various things about ownership and then legal lawsuits companies have and anything that creates reputational risk for us. But we bank — we do not debank businesses in total. And so there are lot of misunderstandings here. Hopefully, the law will change. And, hopefully, it’ll get sorted out.

PICKER: Yes. Well, you’ve clarified a lot for us today. We really appreciate your time, Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan.

DIMON: Oh, thank you.

PICKER: Appreciate it. Kelly, I’ll send it back to you.