A bank to bank on

A wander round the Morgan library on New York’s Madison Avenue gives a pretty swift idea of the rewards that one of the greatest bankers accrued over the decades in which he dominated Wall Street.

JP Morgan was famous as much for the size of his nose as of his wallet, and once that mighty proboscis started sniffing around the collecting world there was no stopping him. Most collectors would be happy with one Gutenberg Bible; Morgan had three.

And 110 years after the great man’s death, the bank that bears his name is looking in rude health.

Under the leadership of Jamie Dimon, the longest-serving CEO of any big bank on Wall Street, it has taken the lead in dealing with Washington over the regional banking crisis and the debt ceiling debate, just as Morgan himself rallied Wall Street to resolve the Panic of 1907 that threatened to cripple the US economy.

The bank has hoovered up the remnants of First Republic, and it seems to have been the beneficiary of significant deposit inflows in the rush to quality that followed the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

It has constantly been investing in its franchise, with initiatives in cloud computing, hiring and marketing that are paying off in terms of market share gains.

The only bad smell around has to do with to two lawsuits relating to the bank’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, with Dimon himself scheduled for deposition later this month, but apart from that it looks well set for further growth.

The buzz is less about the acceleration of its hypercar and more about the rate at which it is burning through cash