JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon has been very vocal about the danger of unfounded market rumors and speculation, particularly in these turbulent times. He went so far as to recently advocate to Charlie Rose, “if someone knowingly starts a rumor or passes on a rumor, they should go to jail.” But if Mr. Dimon is indeed serious about eliminating rumor-mongering, he may want to start first with his own rank-and-file before taking on the short sellers.
I went to a neighborhood local Chase branch yesterday to attend to some S&A corporate banking needs. As our assigned client relationship manager Olga (a banker exceptionally good at her job) is based at another location, I met briefly with a Chase employee who is clearly not marching lockstep with Mr. Dimon on the issue of whisper campaigns.
As he looked after the day’s business needs, the employee casually asked whether I personally had an account with Chase. I told him that I did not.
And that’s where things went off track.
He asked me where I banked and why I didn’t do so with Chase. I told him that I was a satisfied customer with a more recent entrant to the New York banking scene and that one of the primary reasons I banked with them was because I never had to wait in long lines like the one currently in his lobby (ok, I admit that was a tad snarky but I was under some time pressure to get back to the office and engaging in an unsolicited sales pitch wasn’t going to keep me on schedule).
After repeating the name of my bank, he paused and then continued, “Hmmmm… you DO know what happened to IndyMac, don’t you?” While he did not come right out and say that parallels should be drawn between IndyMac’s financial health and that of my own bank, he said it in such a way that his connect-the-dots insinuation could hardly be misconstrued.
While certainly insulted that he mistook me for someone who might be gullible enough to fall for the scare tactic, I was more taken aback by the brazen and cavalier way he threw out such an irresponsible and reckless suggestion about such a grave issue. At a time when consumers’ economic confidence has ebbed to the degree that the FDIC chairwoman actually sees the need to assure people via a national morning TV show that our banking system remains sound, making false representations, even on a one-on-one basis, about a competing bank’s financial condition is a rather indefensible sales approach.
I’ve worked with the financial services sector for more than a dozen years and have more than a passing familiarity with my institution’s financial wherewithal, so I was able to quickly call the employee on his devious sales approach. But what about the average customer who walks in off the street? How many of them are now needlessly worried about the health of their bank? How many are now whispering in the ears of friends and family that they heard their bank may be the next one to go under?
While I certainly applaud Mr. Dimon for stridently weighing in on the deleterious consequences of market speculation and rumor-mongering gone rampant, his message would have far more credibility, at least in my eyes, if I hadn’t just had a run-in with the one employee out of 180,000 who engaged in similar antics, albeit on a smaller scale.
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