I run consumer deposit pricing at JPMorgan Chase. Our standard savings account pays 0.01%.
That's one one-hundredth of a percent.
Leave $10,000 with us for a year and we'll pay you $1. Leave $50,000 and we'll pay you $5. We publish this on a rate sheet. We don't hide it. We don't have to.
On Sunday, Torsten Slok, the chief economist at Apollo, published a note called "Is an Agentic bank run coming?"
I read it at 6:40 in the morning. I read it twice. It was the most frightening thing I've ever read, because it described my job.
"If every household used AI agents to optimize the return on their cash balances, banks could lose a large share of the cheap deposits they rely on to make loans, which would be a problem for the entire financial system."
The cheap deposits are you.
Online, Revolut, SoFi, Wealthfront and others pay between 3.3% and 5%.
Your $10,000 would earn between $330 and $500 there.
With us it earns $1.
That difference is what we call the relationship.
People think banks compete on rates. We compete on you being busy. On the password you forgot. On the routing number you'd have to find. On the eight minutes it would take you to move your money, and the weekend you'll do it, and the weekend after that.
In the second quarter, JPMorgan Chase made $25.6 billion in net interest income. My division, Consumer and Community Banking, made $5.3 billion in profit.
Our average consumer deposits went up 3%.
You stayed, and you brought friends.
We call you loyal. I've built a 30-year career on that word.
Here's what scares me.
An AI agent doesn't get busy. It doesn't forget the password. It doesn't put things off until the weekend. It reads every rate in the country before you finish your coffee, and it doesn't care how long you've banked with us.
It has no relationship with me at all.
Meta has an agent called Muse that can already see your accounts. It can't move your money yet.
Slok is careful to say this hasn't shown up in deposit data. It's a scenario.
So I'm treating it like one. We have a plan.
First, we'll promote our relationship rates. They're a little higher than 0.01%. You qualify by meeting the conditions. The conditions are on page 3.
Second, security. We're very concerned about agents moving your money without you. So any agent that wants to move funds will need to verify by phone, during business hours, with a human, who will be at lunch.
Third, we'll tell you the agents are dangerous.
My father worked at a branch. He knew every customer by name. At Thanksgiving, people came up to him and thanked him for keeping their money safe.
He paid them interest you could feel. He thought that was the job.
I pay them $1 a year on $10,000 and they still thank me. I think this is the job.
Slok called it "a problem for the entire financial system."
He's right. The system needs you not to check.
So I'm not that worried.
You did the math. And tomorrow your $10,000 will still be with us, earning $1 a year, because the transfer form is long and it's almost the weekend.
I'd bet the bank on it.
I'm the bank.
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